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DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 




"'I WILL TELL YOU WHERE THERE IS PLENTY OF IT." 



-Page 109 



GREAT DA YS IN AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES 

DAYS OF THE 
DISCOVERERS 

BY 

LfLAMPREY 

Author of "In the Days oj the Guild,'* 
"Masters oj the Guild, '♦ etc. 



ILLUSTRATED BV 

FLORENCE CHOATE and ELIZABETH CURTIS 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Fioi 



Copyright, I921, by 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All rights reserved, including that of translation 
into foreign languages 



OCT lU iyi:'! 



Made in the United States of A;n erica 

•0)CI.A624745 



TO FORESTA 

Upon the road to Faerie, 
O there are many sights to see, — 
Small woodland folk may one discern 
Housekeeping under leaf and fern, 
And little tunnels in the grass 
Where caravans of goblins pass. 
And airy corsair-craft that float 
On wings transparent as a mote, — 
All sorts of curious things can be 
Upon the road to Faerie! 

Along the wharves of Faerie — 

There all the winds of Christendie 

Are musical with hawk-bell chimes, 

Carillons rung to minstrels' rimes. 

And silver trumpets bravely blown 

From argosies of lands unknown. 

And the great war-drum's wakening roll — 

The reveille of heart and soul — 

For news of all the ageless sea 

Comes to the quays of Faerie! 

Across the fields to Faerie 

There is no lack of company, — 

The world is real, the world is wide, 

But there be many things beside. 

Who once has known that crystal spring 

Shall not lose heart for anything. 

The blessing of a faery wife 

Is love to sweeten all your life. 

To find the truth whate'er it be — 

That is the luck of Faerie ! 



Above the gates of Faerie 

There bends a wild witch-hazel tree. 

The fairies know its elfin powers. 

They wove a garland of the flowers. 

And on a misty autumn day 

They crowned their queen — and ran away! 

And by that gift they made you free 

Of all the roads of Faerie! 



CONTENTS 
To Foresta v 

I 

AsGARD THE Beautiful (1348) i 

The Viking's Secret 17 

II 

The Runes OF THE Wind- Wife (1364) .... 18 
The Navigators (1415-1460) 34 

III 

Sea OF Darkness (1475) 35 

Sunset Song 48 

IV 

Pedro and His Admiral (1492) 50 

The Queen s Prayer ... 65 



The Man Who Could Not Die (1493-1494) ... 66 
The Escape .80 

VI 

Locked Harbors (1497) 81 

Gray Sails 93 

VII 

Little Venice (1500) 94 

The Gold Road 104 

VIII 

The Dog with Two Masters (15 12) 105 

Cold 0' the Moon (1519) 1 17 



CONTENTS 

IX PAGE 

Wampum Town (1508-1524) 121 

The Drum i33 

X 

The Gods OF Taxmar (15 12-15 19) 134 

The Legend of Malinche 148 

XI 

The Thunder Birds (15 19-1520) 150 

Moccasin Flower 165 

XII 
Gifts FROM NoRUMBEGA (1533-1535) .... . 167 
The Mustangs l8l 

XIII 
The White Medicine Man (1528-1536) . . . .182 
Lone Bayou (1542) . ^ 195 

XIV 

The Face OF the Terror (1564) 197 

The Destroyers 214 

XV 

The Fleece OF Gold (1561-1577) 215 

A Watch-dog of England {15S3) 237 

XVI 

Lords OF Roanoke (1584) 238 

The Changelings 250 

XVII 

The Gardens OF Helene (1607-1609) 252 

The Wooden Shoe 269 

XVIII 

The Fires THAT Talked (1610) 270 

Imperialism 282 

XIX 

Admiral OF New England ( 1 600-1 61 4) 284 

The Discoverers 299 

Bibliography 300 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

" *I will tell you where there is plenty of it' " (in color) 

Frontispiece ^ 

FAOINa 
PAGE 

" 'And Freya came from Asgard in her chariot drawn by 

two cats'" (in color) 4 v/ 

"Nils marked out an inscription in Runic letters" . . . 30 *^ 

"The miniature globe took form as the children watched, 

fascinated" 44 

"He proposed that Caonaba should put on the gift the 

Spanish captain had brought" 78 •• 

"A sapling, bent down, .was attached to a noose ingeniously 

hidden" 86^ 

"The natives seemed prepared to traffic in all peace and 

friendliness" (in color) 132 

"Cortes flung about his shoulders his own cloak" . . . 146 ' 

"Moteczuma awaited them in the courtyard" (in color) . 162 

"Cartier read from his service-book" 176 

"The creatures darkened the plain almost as far as the eye 

could see" 190 

" 'Gentlemen, whence does this fleet come?' " .... 204 

"Drake was silent, fingering the slender Milanese poniard" 226 - 

"If he had to wear her fetters, they should at least be 

golden" 244 v/ 

"The Grand Master of the day entered the dining hall" . 266 '^ 



DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 



DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 



ASGARD TflE BEAUTIFUL 

A RED fox ran into the empty church. In the 
middle of the floor he sat up and looked 
around. Nothing stirred — not the painted figures on 
the wooden walls, nor the boy who now stood in the 
doorway. This boy was gray-eyed and flaxen-haired, 
and might have been eleven or twelve years old. He 
was looking for the good old priest, Father Ansgar, 
and the wild shy animal eyeing him from the foot of 
the altar made it only too clear that the church, like 
the village, was deserted. 

Father Ansgar was dead of the strange swift 
pestilence that was called in 1348 the Black Death. 
So also were the sexton, the cooper, the shoemaker, 
and almost all the people of the valley. A ship had 
come into Bergen with the plague on board, and it 
spread through Norway like a grass-fire. Only last 
week Thorolf Erlandsson ^ had had a father and 
mother, a grandmother, two younger sisters and a 
brother. Now he was alone. In the night the dairy 
woman and the plowmen at Ormgard farm had run 
away. Other farms and houses were already closed 
and silent, or plundered and burned. Ormgard being 
remote had at first escaped the sickness. 

Thorolf turned away from the church door and 

began to climb the mountain. At the lane leading to 

1 



2 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

his home he did not stop, but kept on into the woods. 
It was not so lonely there. 

Up and up he climbed, the thrilling scent of fir- 
balsam in his nostrils, the small friendly noises of the 
forest all about him. Only a few months ago he had 
come down this very road with his father, driving the 
cattle and goats home from the summer pasture. All 
the other farmers were doing the same, and the clear 
notes of the lure, the long curving horn, used for calling 
the cattle and signaling across valleys, soared from 
slope to slope. There was laughter and shouting and 
joking all the way down. Now the only persons 
abroad seemed to be thieving ruffians whose greed for 
plunder was more than their fear of the plague. 

A thought came to the boy. How could he leave 
his father's cattle unfed and uncared for? What if 
he were to drive the cows himself to the saeter and 
tend them through the summer? He faced about, 
resolutely, and began to descend the hill. 

Within sight of the familiar roofs he heard some 
one coming from the village, on horseback. It proved 
to be Nils the son of Magnus the son of Nils who was 
called the Bear-Slayer, with a sack of grain and a pair 
of saddlebags on a sedate brown pony. Nils was lame 
of one foot and no taller than a boy of nine, although 
he was thirteen this month and his head was nearly as 
large as a man's. He had been an orphan from baby- 
hood, and for the last three years had lived in the 
priest's house learning to be a clerk. 

" Hoh ! " called Nils, " where are you going? " 

" To the farm to get our cattle and take them to 
the saeter. There is no one left to do it but me." 

" Cattle? " queried the other interestedly, " She will 
be glad of that." 



ASGARD THE BEAUTIFUL 3 

"She!" said Thorolf, "who?" 

" The Wind-wife ^ — Mother Elle, who used to sell 
wind to the sailors — the Finnish woman from Stav- 
anger. She has gathered up a lot of children who have 
no one to look after them and is leading them into the 
mountains. She has Nikolina Sven's daughter Lars- 
son, and Olof and Anders Amundson, and half a score 
of younger ones from different villages. She says that 
if it is God 's will for the plague to come to the saeter 
it will come, but it is not there now, and it is in the 
valleys and the towns. She has gone on with the small 
ones who cannot walk fast, and left Olof and Anders 
and me to bring along the ponies with the loads. I'll 
help you drive your beasts." 

Without trouble the lads got the animals out of the 
byres and headed them up the road. Norway is so 
sharply divided by precipitous mountain ranges and 
deeply-penetrating fiords, that it may be but a few miles 
from a farm near sea level to the high grassy pastures 
three or four thousand feet above it where the cattle 
are pastured in summer. The saeter maidens live 
there in their cottages from June to September, making 
butter and cheese, tending the herds and doing such 
other work as they can. The saeter belonging to 
Ormgard and its neighbors was the one chosen by 
Mother Elle as a refuge for her flock. 

The forest of magnificent firs through which the road 
passed presently grew less somber, beginning to be 
streaked with white birches whose bright leaves 
twinkled in the sun. Then it reached the height at 
which evergreens cease to grow. The birches were 
shorter and sparser, and through the thinning wood- 
land appeared glimpses of a treeless pasture dotted 
with scrubby low bushes and clumps of rushes. A glint 



4 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

of clear green water betrayed a small lake in a dip of 
the hills. And now were heard sounds most unusual 
in that lonely place, the high sweet voices of children. 

Birch trees, little trees, dwarfed by sharp winds and 
poor soil, encircled a level space perhaps ten feet 
across, carpeted with new soft grass, reindeer moss 
and cupped lichens. Here sat seven or eight children 
eagerly listening to a story told by an older child as she 
divided the ration of fladbrod,^ wild strawberries 
from a small basket of birchbark, and brown goat's- 
milk cheese. 

*' And Freya came from Asgard in her chariot drawn 
by two cats — " 

NikoUna the daughter of Sven Larsson of the 
Trolle farm was known through all the valley, not only 
as the sole child of its richest farmer, but for the bright 
blonde hair that covered her shoulders with its soft 
abundance and hung to her waist. Her father would 
not have it cut or braided or even covered save by such 
a little embroidered cap as she wore now. Her scarlet 
bodice, and blue-black skirt bordered with bright woven 
bands, were of the finest wool; the full-sleeved white 
linen under-dress had been spun and woven and em- 
broidered by skilful and loving fingers. Nikolina had 
lost the roof from over her head, and a great deal 
more than that. Now she was giving her whole mind 
to the little ones of all ages from four to eight, crowd- 
ing close about her. 

" Hi! " called Nils, " where is Mother Elle? See 
what Thorolf and I have got ! " 

The children scrambled to their feet and gazed with 
round eyes, their small hungry teeth munching their 
morsels of hard bread. Nikolina plucked a bunch of 




'AND FK 



)R.\w.\ v.y rwo 

— Page 4 



ASGARD THE BEAUTIFUL 5 

grass for Snow, the foremost cow, and patted her as 
she ate It. 

" The little ones were so tired and hungry," she said, 
*' that Mother Elle said they might have their supper 
now, while she and Olof and Anders went on to the 
saeter. This is wonderful ! She was saying only this 
morning that she feared all the cattle were dead or 
stolen." 

Within an hour they came in sight of the log huts 
with turf-covered roofs that sloped almost to the 
ground in the rear. A broad plain stretched away be- 
yond, and the new grass was of that vivid green to be 
found in places which deep snow makes pure. Hills 
enclosed it, and beyond, a gleaming network of lake 
and stream ended in range above range of blue and 
silver peaks. The clear invigorating air was like some 
unearthly wine. The cows at the scent of fresh pasture 
moved more briskly; the pony tossed his head and 
whinnied. Not far from the cottages there came to 
meet them a little old woman, dark and wiry, with 
bright searching eyes. Her face was wrinkled all over 
in fine soft lines, but her hair was hardly gray at all. 
She wore a pointed hood and girdled tunic of tanned 
reindeer hide, with leggings and shoes of the same. A 
blanket about her shoulders was draped into a kind of 
pouch, in which she carried on her back a tow-headed, 
solemn-eyed baby. 

" Welcome to you, Thorolf Erlandsson," she said, 
just as if she had been expecting him. " With this 
good milk we shall fare like the King." 

No king, truly, could have supped on food more de- 
licious than that enjoyed by Nils and Thorolf on this 
first night in the saeter. It is strange but true that 



6 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

the most exquisite delights are those that money can- 
not buy. No man can taste cold spring water and 
barley bread in absolute perfection who has not paid 
the poor man's price — hard work and keen hunger. 

When Nikolina, Karen and Lovisa came up with the 
smaller children the place had already an inhabited, 
homelike look. There was even a wise old raven, al- 
most as large as a gander, whom Nils had christened 
Munin, after Odin's bird. The little ones had all the 
new milk they could drink from their wooden bowls, 
and were put to bed in the movable wooden bed-places, 
on beds of hay covered with sheepskins and blankets. 
All were asleep before dark, for at that season the night 
lasted only two or three hours. The last thing that 
Thorolf heard was a happy little pipe from the five- 
year-old Ellida, — 

" Now we shall live in Asgard forever and ever." 

For all it had to do with the experience of many of 
the children the saeter might really have been Asgard, 
the Norse paradise. The youngest had never before 
been outside the narrow valley where they were born. 
Ellida and Margit, Didrik and little Peder, could not 
be convinced that they were anywhere but in Asgard 
the Blest. 

Norway had long since become Christian, but the 
old faith was not forgotten. The legends, songs and 
customs of the people were full of it. In the sagas 
Asgard was described as being on a mountain at the 
top of the world. Around the base of this mountain 
lay Midgard, the abode of mankind. Beyond the 
great seas, in Utgard, the giants lived. Hel was the 
under-world, the home of evil ghosts and spirits. 
Tales were told in the long winter evenings, of Baldur 
the god of spring, Loki the crafty, Odin the old one- 



ASGARD THE BEAUTIFUL 7 

eyed beggar In a hooded cloak, with his two ravens and 
his two tame wolves, Freya the lovely lady of flowers, 
Elle-folk dancing in the moonlight, and little rascally 
Trolls, 

The songs and legends repeated by the old people 
or chanted by minstrels or skalds were more than idle 
stories — they were the history of a race. Children 
heard over and over again the family records telling 
in rude rhyme the story of centuries. In distant Ice- 
land, Greenland, the Shetlands, the Faroes or the Ork- 
neys, a Norseman could tell exactly what might be his 
udall right, or right of inheritance, in the land of his 
fathers. 

On Nils and Thorolf, Anders, Olof, Nikolina,' Karen 
and Lovisa, who were all over ten years old, rested 
great responsibility. Mother Elle always managed to 
solve her own problems and expected them to attend 
to theirs without constant direction from her. She 
told them what there was to be done and left them to 
attend to it. 

All were hardy, active youngsters who took to fend- 
ing for themselves as naturally as a day-old chick takes 
to scratching. In ordinary seasons the work at the 
saeter was heavy, for the maidens must not only follow 
the herds over miles of pasture land, but make butter 
and cheese for the winter from their milking. The 
few cows that were here now could be tethered near by; 
the milk, when the children had had all they wanted, 
was mostly used in soups, pudding or grot (porridge). 
A net or weir stretched across the outlet of the lake 
would fill with fish overnight. The streams were full 
of trout. Mother Elle knew how to make fish-hooks 
of bone, bows and arrows, ropes, and baskets of bark, 
how to weave osiers, how to cure bruises and cuts, how 



8 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

to trap the wild hares, grouse and plover and cook 
them over an open fire. The children found plover's 
eggs and the eggs of other wild fowl. They raised 
pulse, leeks, onions and turnips in a little garden patch. 
They gathered strawberries, cranberries, crowberries, 
wild currants, black and red, the cloudberry and the 
delicious arctic raspberry which tastes of pineapple. 
Some stores of salt and grain were already at the saeter 
and the grain-fields had been sowed, before the pesti- 
lence appeared in the valley. 

In the long summer days of these northern moun- 
tains, one has the feeling that they will never end, 
that life must go on in an infinite succession of still, 
sunshiny, fragrant hours, filled with the songs of birds, 
the chirr of insects and the distant lowing of cattle. 
There is time for everything. At night comes dream- 
less slumber, and the morning is like a birth into new 
life. 

There was a great deal of singing and story-telling 
at odd times. A group of children making mats or 
baskets, gathering pease or going after berries would 
beg Nils or Nikolina to tell a story, or Karen would 
lead them in some old song with a familiar refrain. 
But some of the songs the Wind-wife crooned to the 
baby were not like any the children had heard. They 
were not even in Norwegian. 

Thorolf was a silent lad, who would rather listen 
than talk, and hated asking questions. But one day, 
when he and Nikolina were hunting wild raspberries, 
he asked her if she thought Mother Elle meant to 
stay in the mountains through the winter. Nikolina 
did not know. 

'Tis well to be wise but not too wise, 



ASGARD THE BEAUTIFUL 9 

'Tis well that to-morrow is hid from our eyes, 
For in forward-looking forebodings rise," 

she added quaintly. " I have heard her say that it is 
colder in Greenland than it is here." 

"Has she been in Greenland?" 

" Her father and mother were on the way there 
when she was little, and the ship was wrecked some- 
where on the coast. The Skroelings found her and 
took her to live in their country. That is how she 
learned so much about trees and herbs, and how to 
make bows and arrows and moccasins." 

" Moccasins?" 

" The little shoes she made for Elllda. And she 
made a little boat for Peder, like their skiffs." 

This was interesting. For a private reason, Thor- 
olf held Greenland to be the most fascinating of all 
places. 

" Can she speak their language? " 

" Of course. I asked her to teach me, and she said 
that perhaps she would some day. The songs that 
she sings to the little ones are some that the Skroeling 
woman who adopted her used to sing to her when she 
cried for her own mother. One of them begins like 
this: 

" * Piche Klooskap pechian 
Machieswi menikok.' " 

"What does it mean?" 

" ' Long ago Klooskap came to the island of the 
partridges.' Klooskap was like Odin, or Thor. The 
priests in Greenland told her he was a devil and 
wouldn't let her talk about him, but the Skroelings had 



10 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

runes for everything just like the people in the sagas, — 
runes for war, and healing, and the sea." 

" How did she ever get away? " 

*' Some men came from Westbyrg to cut wood in 
the forest, and when they saw that she was not really 
a Skroeling they bought her for an iron pot and one 
of them married her. But he was drowned a long 
time ago." 

" I wish I knew the Skroelings' language. Some 
day I mean to go to Greenland." 

" Perhaps Mother Elle will teach you. I'll ask 
her." 

The Wind-wife was rather chary of information 
about the country of the Skroelings until Nikolina's 
coaxing and Thorolf's silent but intense interest had 
taken effect. The country, she said, was rather like 
Norway, with mountains and great forests, lakes and 
streams, but far colder. There were no fiords, and 
no cities. The people lived in tents made of poles 
covered with bark, or hides. They dressed in the 
hides of wild animals and lived by hunting and fishing. 
They had no reindeer, horses, cattle, sheep or goats, 
no fowls, no pigs. They could not work iron, nor did 
they spin or weave. The man and woman who had 
adopted her treated her just like their own child. 

The stories she had learned from these people were 
intensely interesting to her listeners. There was one 
about a battle between the wasps and the squirrels, 
and another about the beaver who wanted wings. One 
was about a girl who was married to the Spirit of the 
Mountain and had a son beautiful and straight and Hke 
any other boy except that he had stone eyebrows. 
Then there was the tale about Klooskap tying up the 
White Eagle of the Wind so that he could not flap 



ASGARD THE BEAUTIFUL ii 

his wings. After a short time everything was so dirty 
and ill-smelling and unhealthy that Klooskap had to 
go back and untie one wing, and let the wind blow to 
clear the air and make the earth once more wholesome. 

Wild apples fell, grain ripened, nights lengthened. 
Long ago the twin-flower, violet, wild pansy, forget- 
me-not and yellow anemone had left their fairy haunts, 
and there remained only the curving fantastic fronds 
of the fern, — the dragon-grass. Then had come 
brilliant spots and splashes of color on the summer 
slopes — purple butterwort, golden ragweed, aco- 
nite, buttercup, deep crimson mossy patches of saxi- 
frage, rosy heather, catchfly, wild geranium, cinna- 
mon rose. These also finished their triumphal pro- 
cession and went to their Valhalla. Then one Sep- 
tember morning the children woke to hear the wind 
screaming as if the White Eagle had escaped his 
prison, and the rain pelting the world. 

All summer they had been out, rain or shine, like 
water-ouzels, byt now they were glad to sit about the 
fire with the shutters all closed, and the smoke now and 
then driven down into the room by the storm. Before 
evening the little ones were begging for stories. 

*' I wish I could remember a saga I heard last Yule," 
Nikolina said at last. *' It was about a voyage the 
Vikings made to a country where the people had never 
seen cattle. When they heard the cattle bellowing they 
all ran away and left the furs they had come to sell." 

" Tell all you remember and make up the rest," sug- 
gested Karen, but Nikolina shook her head. 

" One should never do that with a saga." 

" I know that tale," spoke up Thorolf suddenly, al- 
though he had never in his life repeated a saga. 
" Grandmother used to tell it. In the beginning Bjarni 



12 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Heriulfson the sea-rover, after many years came home 
to Iceland to drink wassail in his father's house. But 
strangers dwelt there and told him that his father was 
gone to Greenland, and he set sail for that land. Soon 
was the ship swallowed up in a gray mist in which were 
neither sun nor stars. They sailed many days they 
knew not where, but suddenly the fog lifted and the 
sun revealed to them a coast of low hills covered with 
forest. By this Bjarni thought that it was not Green- 
land but some southerly coast. Therefore turned he 
northward and sailed many days before he sighted the 
mountains of Greenland and his father's house. 

" Years afterward returned Bjarni to Iceland, and 
in his telling of that voyage it came to the ears of Leif 
Ericsson, who asked him many questions about the land 
he had seen. There grew no trees in Iceland or Green- 
land, fit for house-timber, and Leif was minded to find 
out this place of great forests. Thus it came that Leif 
sailed from Brattahlid in Greenland with five and thirty 
men in a long ship upon a journey of discovery. 

" First came they to a barren land covered with big 
flat stones, and this Leif named Helluland, the slate 
land. Southward sailed he for many days until he 
saw a coast covered with wooded hills, and there he 
landed, calling it Markland, the land of woods. Then 
southward again they bore and came to a place where 
a river flowed out of a lake and fell into the sea. The 
country was pleasant, with good fishing. Leif said 
that they would spend the winter there, and they built 
wooden cabins well-made and warm. 

" Then at the season when the leaves are blood-red 
and bright gold came in from the woods Thorkel the 
German, smacking his lips and making strange faces 
and jabbering in his own language. When they asked 



ASGARD THE BEAUTIFUL 13 

what ailed him he said that he had found vines loaded 
with grapes, and having seen none since he left his 
own country, which was a land of vineyards, he was 
out of his senses with delight. Therefore was that 
country named Vinland the Fair. In the spring went 
Leif home, well pleased, with a cargo of timber, but 
his father being dead he voyaged no more to Vinland, 
but remained to be head of his house. 

" Next went Thorvald, Leif's brother, to Vinland 
and stayed two winters in the booths that Leif built, 
until he was slain in a fight with the men of that land. 
His men buried him there and returned sorrowfully 
to their own land. 

'* Next went Thorestein, Leif's second brother, 
forth, with Gudrid his wife, to get the body of Thor- 
yald but he died on the voyage and his widow 
•eturned to Brattahlid. 

" Next came to Brattahlid Thorfin Karlsefne, the 
Viking from Iceland, who loved and married Gudrid 
and from her heard the story of Vinland, and desired 
it for his own. In good time went he forth in a long 
ship with his wife, and there went with him three other 
valiant ships. They had altogether one hundred and 
sixty men and five women, with cattle, grain and all 
things fit for a settlement. This was seven years af- 
ter Leif Ericsson found Vinland. Among the stores 
for trading was scarlet cloth, which the Skroelings 
greatly covet, insomuch that one small strip of scarlet 
would buy many rich furs. But when they came to 
trade, hearing a bull bellow, with a great squalling they 
all ran away and left their packs on the ground, nor 
did they show their faces again for three weeks. 
Snorre, the son of Thorfin Karlsefne, born in Vinland, 
was three years old when the Northmen left that land. 



14 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

They had found the winter hard and cold, and in a 
fight with the Skroelings many had been killed, so that 
they took ship and returned to Iceland. 

" They had gone but a little way when one of the 
ships, which was commanded by Bjarni Grimulfsson, 
lagged so far behind that it lost sight of the others. 
The men then discovered that shipworms ^ had bored 
the hull so that it was about to sink. None could hope 
to be saved but in the stern boat, and that would not 
hold half of them. 

" Then stood Bjarni Grimulfsson forth, and said to 
his men that in this matter there should be no advan- 
tage of rank, but they would draw lots, who should go 
in the boat and who remain in the ship. When this 
had been done it was Bjarni's lot to go in the boat. 
After all had gone down into the boat who had the 
right, an Icelander who had been Bjarni's companion 
made outcry dolefully saying, ' Bjarni, Bjarni, do you 
leave me here to die in the sea? It was not so you 
promised me when I left my father's house.' Then 
said Bjarni, for the lot was fairly cast, ' What else can 
be done? ' Then said the Icelander, ' I think that you 
should come up into the ship and let me go down into 
the boat.' And indeed no other way might be found 
for him to live. Then answered Bjarni making light 
of the matter, ' Let it be so, since I see that you are 
so anxious to live and so afraid of death; I will return 
to the ship.' This was done, and the men rowing away 
looked back and saw the ship go down in a great swirl 
of waves with Bjarni and those who remained. 

" This tale my grandmother heard from her father, 
and he from his, and so on until the time of that Thor- 
olf Erlandsson who sailed with Bjarni Grimulfsson and 



ASGARD THE BEAUTIFUL 15 

went down into the sea by his side singing, for he 
feared nothing but to be a coward." 

Thorolf's eyes were as proud and his head as high 
as were his Viking forefather's when the worm-riddled 
galley went to her grave with more than half her crew, 
three hundred and forty years before. In the little 
silence which followed the fire crackled and whistled, 
the gusty rain-drenched wind beat upon the little hut. 
And then Nils repeated musingly the ancient saying 
from the Runes of Odin, 

" ' Cattle die, Kings die, 
Kindred die, we also die, — 
One thing never dies, 
The fair fame of the valiant.' " 

Some one knocked at the door. A real Viking in 
winged helmet and scale-armor would hardly have 
surprised them just then. But it was only a tall man 
in a traveler's cloak and hat, and they made quickly 
room for him to dry himself by the fire, and brought 
food and drink for him to refresh himself. 

" I thought that I knew the way to the old place," 
he said, looking about, " but in this tempest I nearly 
lost myself. Which of you is Thorolf Erlandsson? " 

The stranger was Syvert Thorolfson, a merchant of 
Iceland, Thorolf's uncle. He brought messages from 
Nikolina's grandmother in Stavanger, and from the 
Bishop, who was ready to see that all the children 
who had no relatives should be taken care of in Ber- 
gen. Within three days Asgard the Beautiful was 
left to the lemming and the raven. Yet the long 
bright summer lived always in the hearts of the chil- 



i6 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

dren. Years after Thorolf remembered the words of 
the Wind-wife, — 

" Make friends with the Skroelings — make friends. 
Friendship is a rock to stand on; hatred is a rock to 
split on. In the land of Klooskap shall you be Kloos- 
kap's guest." 

NOTES 

1. In old Norse families names alternated from father to son. For 
example, Thorolf Erlandsson (Thorolf the son of Erland) would 
name his son after his own father, and the boy would be known as 
Erland Thorolfsson. A daughter was known by her given name and 
her father's, as Sigrid Erlandsdatter. In the case of the farm being 
of sufficient importance for a surname the name might be added, as 
" Elsie Tharaldsdatter Ormgrass." 

2. Northern sailors regard the Finns as wizards. 

3. Fladbrod is the coarse peasant-bread of Norway, made from an 
unfermented dough of barley and oatmeal rolled out into large thin 
cakes and baked. It will keep a long time. 

4. The teredo or shipworra was a serious peril in the days before 
the sheathing of ships. Even tar sheathing was not used until the 
sixteenth century. 



THE VIKING'S SECRET 

In the days of jarl and hersir, while yet the world was young, 
And sagas of gods and heroes the grim-lipped minstrel sung, 
With the beak of his open galley in the sunset's scarlet flame, 
Over the wild Atlantic the Norseland Viking came. 

Life was a thing to play with, — oh, then the world was wide, 
With room for man and mammoth, and a goblin life beside. 
Now we have slain the mammoths, and we have driven the 

ghosts away. 
And we read the saga of Vinland in the light of a new-born 

day. 

We have harnessed the deadly lightnings; we have ridden the 

restless wave. 
We have chased the brood of the werewolf back to their noisome 

cave. 
But far in the icy Northland, with weird witch-lights aglow, 
Locked in the Greenland glaciers, is a tale we do not know. 

Out of Brattahlid's portal, southward from Herjulfsness, 
They came to their new-found kingdom, their Vinland to 

possess. 
Armored with careless laughter, strong with a stubborn will, 
The Vikings found it and lost it — it is undiscovered still! 

Where did they beach their galleys? How were their cabins 

planned ? 
Who were the fearful Skroelings? What was the Fiirdiir- 

strand ? 
What were the grapes of Tyrker? For all that is written or 

said. 
The Rune Stones hold the secret of the days of Eric the Red ! 

17 



II 

THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 

SALT and scarred from the northern seas, the Taer- 
nan, deep-laden with herring, nosed in at the 
Hanse quay in Bergen. Thorolf Erlandsson looked 
grimly up at the huge warehouses. Since the Hansea- 
tic League secured a foothold in Norway, in 1343, most 
Norwegian ports had been losing trade, and Bergen, 
or rather the Hanse merchants in Bergen, had been 
getting it. Between the Danes and the Germans it 
looked rather as If Norwegians were to be crowded out 
of their own country. 

The Hanse traders not only received and sold fish 
for the Friday markets of northern Europe, but sold 
all kinds of manufactured goods. It was said that they 
had two sets of scales — one for buying and one for 
selling. Norwegians had either to adapt themselves 
to the new methods or give their sons to the ceaseless 
battle of the open sea. From the Baltic and Icelandic 
fisheries, the North Sea and the Lofoden Islands, their 
ships got the heaviest and the hardest of the sea-har- 
vesting. 

But it takes more than hardship to break a Norse- 
man. In his four years at sea Thorolf had become tall, 
broad-shouldered and powerful, and at eighteen he 
looked a grown man. He did more than he promised, 
and listened oftener than he talked, and his only close 
friend was Nils Magnusson, who was now coming down 

18 



THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 19 

to the wharf. They had known each other from boy- 
hood. 

Nils had been for three years a clerk in Syvert Thor- 
olfsson's warehouse. While not tall he was neither 
stunted nor crippled, and easily kept pace with Thorolf. 
As he set out the silver-bound horn cups to drink skal^ 
with his friend in his own lodging, the croak and sput- 
ter of German talk sounded in the street below. 

" Behold a new Bergen," observed Nils whimsically. 
" Let us drink to the founding of a new Iceland. Did 
you go to Greenland? " 

" We touched at Kakortok with letters for the 
Bishop. The people are sick and savage with fighting 
against the Skroelings." 

" Now," said Nils, rubbing his long nose, " it is odd 
that you say that, for I was just going to tell you some 
news. The King has given Paul Knutson leave to raise 
a company to fight against the Skroelings in Greenland 
— and parts beyond. He sails in a month." 

" I wish I had known of it." 

" I thought you would say that. This is between 
us two and the candle, but Anders Amundson is go- 
ing, and I am going, and you may go if you will." 

Thorolf's gray eyes flamed. " What is Knutson 
like?" 

*' Well, they may call him Chevalier, but he has the 
old Viking way with him. I said that I had a friend 
who had long wished to lay his bones in a strange 
land, and he answered, ' If your friend sails with me 
I would prefer to have him bring his bones home 
again.' He kept a place for you." 

Three weeks later Thorolf, looking backward as 
the Rotge, (little auk or sea-king) stood out to sea, 
saw the familiar outline of Snaehatten against the sun- 



20 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

rise and wondered when he should see it again. Like a 
questing raven his mind returned to the summer spent 
at the saeter, and recalled that dark saying of the 
Wind-wife, — 

" In the land of Klooskap shall you be Klooskap's 
guest." 

The galley^ rode the waves with the bold freedom 
of her kind. Her keel was carved out of a single 
great tree. Her seasoned oaken timbers, overlapping, 
were riveted together by iron bolts, with the round 
heads outside. Where a timber touched a rib, a strip 
was cut out on each side, forming a block through 
which a hole was bored. Another hole was bored in 
the rib to match and a rope twisted of the inner bark 
of the linden was put through both holes and knotted. 
In surf or heavy sea, this construction gave the craft 
a supple strength. Calking was done with woolen 
cloth steeped in pitch. The mast, of a chosen trunk 
of fir, was set upright in a log with ends shaped like 
a fishtail. The long oarlike rudder was on the board 
or side of the ship to the right of the stern, called the 
starboard or steerboard. The lading was done on the 
opposite side, the larboard or ladderboard. There 
were ten oars to a side, and a single large triangular 
sail. 

Long and narrow, hardly ten feet above the water- 
line at her lowest, her curved prow glancing over the 
waves like the head of a swimming snake, she was no 
more like the tumbling cargo-ships than a shark is like 
a porpoise. When they were two days out. Nils said 
to Thorolf, 

*' A Viking in such a galley would sail to the end of 
the world. By the way, did the Skroelings in Green- 
land understand that language the Wind-wife spoke? " 



THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 21 

" I was not there long enough to find out. I once 
asked a man who knows their talk well, and he said it 
was no tongue that ever he heard," 

The Greenland folk welcomed them heartily. Find- 
ing that the white men had not after all been forgotten 
by their own people, the natives drew off and gave 
them no more trouble. The Northmen spent the win- 
ter in sleep, talk, song, and hunting with native guides. 
Besides the old man in white fur, as the polar bear was 
respectfully called, Arctic foxes, walrus, whales and 
seal abounded. Many of the new-comers became 
skilful in the making and the use of the skin-covered 
native boats called Kayaks. Nils had some skill in 
carving wood and stone, and could write in the Runic 
script of Elfdal. In the long evenings when winds 
from the cave of the Great Bear buffeted the low huts, 
he taught Thorolf and Anders what he knew, and 
talked with the Skroelings. But none of them under- 
stood the runes of the Wind-wife. Their speech was 
quite different. 

Spring came with brief, hot sunshine, and the creep- 
ing birches budded on the pebbly shore. Encouraged 
by the reports from Greenland, new colonists ventured 
out, and house-building went on briskly. One day 
Thorolf was summoned to Knutson's headquarters. 

" Erlandsson," began the Chevalier, *' they say that 
you have information about Vinland ^ and the Skroel- 
ings there, from an old woman who lived among them. 
What can you tell me? " 

Thorolf told the story of the Wind-wife. Knutson 
looked interested but doubtful. 

" I have talked with the oldest colonists," he said, 
" and they know nothing of any Skroelings but those 
hereabouts. They say also that Vinland is hard to 



22 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

come at. Boats venturing south return with tales of 
heavy winds, dense fogs and dangerous cliffs and sker- 
ries — or do not return at all. One was caught and 
crushed in the ice, and the crew were found on the floe 
half starved and gnawing bits of hide. In the sagas 
of Vinland the Skroelings are spoken of as fierce and 
treacherous. To hold such a land would need a strong 
hand. The old woman may have forgotten — or the 
stories may be those of her own people." 

Thorolf shook his head. " Nay, my lord. She 
was not a forgetful person — and the language is 
neither Lapp nor Finn." 

" She was very old, you say? " 
" I think so. I do not know how old." 
" Old people sometimes confuse what they have 
heard with what they have seen. But I shall remem- 
ber what you have said." 

" If he had known the Wind-wife," said Nils when 
told of this conversation, " he would have no doubt." 
Knutson wrote to the King, but got no reply for a 
long time. A ship with a cargo of trading stores was 
sent for, and was wrecked on the Faroes. But in the 
following spring an expedition to Vinland was really 
planned. There was no general desire to take part 
in it. Many of Knutson's party now longed for their 
native land, where the mountains were drawn swords 
flashing in the sun, and the malachite and silver waters 
and flowery turf, the jeweled scabbards. They 
dreamed of the lure sounding over the valleys, of 
bright-chaired maidens dancing the spring dans. 
Nevertheless in due season the Rotge left the Green- 
land shore and pointed her inquiring beak southeast 
by south. In the Gudr'id sailed Knutson and his 
immediate following, with the trading cargo and most 



THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 23 

of the provisions. By keeping well out to sea at first 
the commander hoped to escape the perils of the 
coast. 

This hope was dashed by an Atlantic gale which 
drove them westward. For two days and two nights 
they were tossed between wind and tide. Toward the 
end of the second night the sound of the waves indi- 
cated land to starboard. In the growing light they 
saw a harbor that seemed spacious enough for all the 
ships in the world, sheltered by wooded hills. If this 
were Vinland, it was greater than saga told or skald 
sang. 

They landed to take in fresh water, mend a leak and 
see the country, but found no grapes, no Skroelings nor 
any sign of Northmen's presence. On the rocks grew 
vineberries, or mountain cranberries, and Knutson 
thought that perhaps these and not true grapes were 
the fruit found in Vinland. He sent a party of a 
dozen men, Anders and Thorolf leading, to explore the 
forest, ascend some hill if possible and return the same 
day. He himself remained with the ships and kept 
Nils by him. He rather expected that the natives, 
learning of the strangers' arrival, would be drawn by 
curiosity to visit the bay. 

The scouting party followed the banks of the little 
stream that had given them fresh water, Anders lead- 
ing, Thorolf just behind him. Wind stirred softly in 
the leaves overhead, unseen birds fluttered and chirped, 
sunshine sifting through the maple undergrowth turned 
it to emerald and gold and jasper. Once there was a 
discordant screech from the evergreens, but it was only 
a brilliant blue jay with crest erect, scolding at them. 
A striped squirrel flashed up the trunk of a tree to his 
hole. Then sudden as lightning, from the bushes they 
had just passed, came a flight of arrows. 



24 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Two men were slightly wounded, but most of the 
arrows were turned by the light strong body armor 
of the Norsemen. The foe remained unseen and un- 
heard. Nothing stirred, though the men. scanned 
the woods about them with the keen eyes of seamen 
and hunters. 

Thorolf was seized with an inspiration. He went 
forward a step or two, lifted his hand in salutation, 
and called, — 

" Klooskap mech p'maosa?"^ (Is Klooskap 
yet alive?) 

There was a silence stiller than death. The Norse- 
men faced the ominous thicket without moving a mus- 
cle. Some one within it called out something which 
Thorolf did not understand. But no more arrows 
came. He tried another sentence. 

" Klooskap k-chi skitap, pechedog latogwesnuk." 
(Klooskap was a great man in the country far to the 
northward.) 

This time he made out the answer. In a swift aside 
he explained to his comrades, — 

" ' K'putuswin ' means ' let us take council.' They 
want to have a talk." 

He managed to convey his assent to the unseen lis- 
teners, and every tree, rock and log sprouted Skroel- 
ings. They were quite unHke the natives of Greenland, 
though of copper-colored complexion.^ These men — 
there were no women among them, — were tall and 
sinewy, and wore their coarse black hair knotted up on 
the head with a tuft of feathers. They were naked to 
the waist, and wore fringed breeches of deerskin, and 
soft shoes embroidered in bright colors. Some had 
necklaces of bears' claws, beads or shells, but the only 
weapons seemed to be the bow and arrow and a stone- 



THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 25 

headed hatchet or club. They stared at the white 
man half curiously and half threateningly. 

Then began 'the queerest conversation that any one 
present had ever heard. Thorolf discovered the wild 
men's language to be so nearly like that learned from 
the Wind-wife that he could understand it when spoken 
slowly, and in a halting fashion could make them com- 
prehend him. His companions listened in wonder. 
Not even Anders had really believed in that language. 

At last Thorolf held out his hand, and the leader of 
the Skroelings came forward in a very gingerly manner 
and took it. Then walking in single file, toes pointed 
straight forward, the savages melted into the forest as 
frost melts in sunshine. 

With a broad grin, the first he had worn for some 
time, Thorolf translated. 

" He asked why we came here. I told him, to see 
the country and trade with his people. He says that 
white men have come here before, very long ago. I 
think they were killed and he did not wish to say so. 
He says that the Sagem, the jarl of his people, lives in 
a castle over there somewhere. I told him to give the 
Sagem greeting from our commander, and invite him 
to visit the place where our ships are. He says that it 
will not be safe for us to go further into the forest 
until the Skroelings have heard who we are and what 
we are doing here." 

" That is very good advice," said Anders with a wry 
face, as he plucked some moss to stanch the wound in 
his arm. The arrow-head which had made it was a 
shaped piece of flint bound to the shaft with cords of 
fine sinew. " We are too few to get into a general 
fight. Besides, that is not in our orders." 



26 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

They accordingly went back to the ships, arriving a 
little before sundown. Knutson was greatly interested. 

" You have done well," he said. " A boat was hov- 
ering about soon after you left. This may have been 
a scouting party sent through the forest to cut you off." 

All the next day they waited, but nothing happened. 
On the morning after, a large number of boats ap- 
peared rounding the headland to the south. In the 
largest sat the Sagem, a very old man wrapped in furs. 
The boats were made of birchbark laced on a wooden 
framework with fibrous roots, like the toy skiff Mother 
Elle had made for little Peder. 

The Skroelings landed, and advanced with great dig- 
nity to meet Knutson, who was equally ceremonious. 
Nils and Thorolf had all they could do to interpret the 
old chief's long speech, although many phrases were 
repeated again and again, which made it easier. Knut- 
son made one in reply, briefer but quite as polite, and 
brought out beads, little knives, and scarlet cloth from 
his trading stores. The red cloth and beads were re- 
ceived with eagerness, the knives with interest, and af- 
ter a young chief had cut himself, with same awe. The 
Sagem in his turn presented the stranger with skins of 
the sable, the silver fox and the bear. He and a few 
of the warriors tasted of the food offered them, and all 
the white men were asked to a feast in the village the 
next day. 

So friendly were the Skroelings, in fact, that Knutson 
determined to return to Greenland and see what could 
be done toward founding a settlement here. He would 
leave part of the men in winter quarters, with the Rotge 
as a means of further explorations, or if necessary, of 
escape. Her captain, Gustav Sigerson, was a cau- 
tious, wise and experienced seaman. Anders Amund- 



THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 27 

son, as the best hunter of the expedition, was to stay, 
with Nils as clerk and Thorolf as interpreter. Booths 
were erected, stores landed, and on a brilliant day in 
late summer some forty Norsemen and Gothlanders on 
the shore watched the Gudrid slowly fading out of 
sight. 

In talking with the natives Nils and Thorolf ob- 
served that their world seemed to be infested with de- 
mons — particularly water-'fiends. A reason for this 
appeared in time. Half a dozen men one day took the 
stern-boat and went a-fishing. They came back white- 
faced, with a story of a giant squid with arms four 
times as long as the boat, that had risen out of the 
sea and tried to pull them under. Only their skill as 
rowers had saved them. Nils remembered the kraken, 
of ancient legends, and thought he could see why the 
Skroelings never ventured out to sea in their frail ca- 
noes. This put an end to plans for exploring along 
the coast. 

The winter was colder than they had expected. 
This land, so much further south than Norway, was 
bitten by frost as Norway never was. There is some- 
thing in intense cold which is inhuman. When men 
are shut up together in exile by it, all that is bad in them 
is likely to crop out. It might have been worse but 
for the fortunate friendliness of the Skroelings. 
When scurvy appeared in the camp, their first acquain- 
tance, Munumqueh (woodchuck) had his women brew 
a drink which cured it. He showed the white men 
also how to make pemmican, the compressed meat 
ration of native hunters, and how to construct and use 
a birch canoe, a pair of snowshoes, and a fire-drill. 
Gustav Sigerson died in the spring, and Ntls was 
chosen captain. He and Munumqueh became great 



28 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

cronies, and exchanged names, Nils being thereafter 
known to his native friends as the Woodchuck, and be- 
stowing upon Munumqueh the proud name of his grand- 
father. Nils the Bear-Slayer. 

" It will never do for us to sit quiet here until 
Knutson returns," said Nils when at Midsummer 
nothing had been seen of the ships. " We shall be at 
one another's throats or quarreling with the savages." 
He had been inquiring about the nature of the country, 
and had learned that westward a great river led to five 
inland seas, so connected that canoes could go from one 
to another. Along this chain of waters lived tribes 
who spoke somewhat the same language and traded 
with one another. Southward lived a warlike people 
who sometimes attacked the lake tribes. Beyond the 
last of the lakes they did not know what the country 
was like. The waters inland were not troubled with 
the water-demon so far as they knew. Nils, Anders 
and Thorolf held a council and decided to explore the 
wilderness as far as they could go in the Rotge. It 
was nothing more than all their ancestors had done. 
Often, In their invasions of England, France and other 
unknown regions Vikings had gone up one river and 
come down another, and the Rotge, for all her iron 
strength, was no more than a wooden shell when 
stripped.® 

They set forth, escorted by a flotilla of small canoes, 
on a clear summer morning, and found their progress 
surprisingly easy. Fish, game and berries were plen- 
tiful, the villages along the river supplied corn and 
beans, and though it was not always easy to drag the 
Rotge around the carrying-places pointed out by their 
native guides, they did not have to turn back. It was 
a proud moment when the undefeated crew launched 



THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 29 

their '* water-snake " as the Skroelings called her, on 
the shining waters of a great inland sea. 

The journey had been a far longer one than they 
expected, and to natives of any other country would 
have been much more exciting than it was to the Norse- 
menJ They had seen cliffs a thousand feet high, cata- 
racts, rapids, a multitude of wooded islands, narrow 
valleys where floating misty clouds came and went and 
the sky looked like a riband. But the precipice above 
Naero Fiord rises four thousand perpendicular feet, 
and the water which laps its base is thousands of feet 
in depth. The Skjaeggedalsfos is loftier than Niagara, 
and the mist-maidens dance along the perilous path- 
ways of a hundred Norwegian cliffs. Nils and Thor- 
olf agreed that the Wind-wife was right when she said 
that the country of the Skroelings was like Norway 
but had no end. 

" The trouble is," reflected Nils as he set down the 
day's happenings on a birch-bark scroll, "that nobody 
will believe us when we tell how great the land is." 

At the end of the fifth and largest lake they found 
people with some knowledge of the country beyond. 
It seemed that after crossing the Big Woods one came 
to great open plains where a ferocious and cruel race 
of warriors hunted animals as large as the moose, with 
hoofs and short horns and curly brown fur. This 
sounded like a cattle country. The lake tribes evi- 
dently stood in great fear of the plains people, but in 
spite of their evident alarm the Norsemen determined 
to go and see for themselves.^ Leaving the boat 
with ten of their company to guard it they struck off 
southwestward through a country of forests, lakes 
and streams. After fourteen days they stopped to 
make camp and go a-fishing, for dried fish would be 



30 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

the most convenient ration for a quick march, and 
they did not intend to spend much more time in ex- 
ploring. 

It seemed to Nils and Thorolf that some mark or 
monument should be left to show how far they had 
really come. A small natural column of dark trap 
rock was chosen, and while the others fished, or made 
a seine after the native fashion, Nils marked out an 
inscription in Runic letters, which are suited to rough 
work. Not far from the place where they found the 
stone, and about a day's journey from camp, was a 
small high island in a little lake, the kind of place 
usually chosen by Vikings for a first camp. The stone, 
set in the middle of this island, would be easily seen by 
any one looking for it, and savages would not see it at 
all. When finished it was rafted across to the island 
and set up, the inscription covering about half of it on 
both sides. While Nils and several others were thus 
busy, the remainder of the party were trying the seine. 
They reached camp after dark to find their booths in 
ashes, and Nils with his men murdered a little way off, 
as they had come up from the Rune Stone. ^ 

With fury and horror the Norsemen looked upon 
the destruction. It was all Thorolf and the cooler 
heads could do to keep the rest from attacking the 
first Skroelings they saw. But the mischief had been 
done, without doubt, by the unknown warriors of the 
plains, who had been perhaps watching their advance. 
They sadly prepared to return to their boat. But be- 
fore they went, Thorolf paddled out to the island on 
two logs, while the others kept guard, and added some 
lines to the inscription on the stone. 

They never saw their Vinland again. Knutson, find- 
ing the King fighting hard against the Danes, gave no 
further thought to the wilderness. Thorolf and a 




,m!mmmf^. 



"NILS MARKED OUT AN INSCRIPTION IN RUNIC LETTERS." 

— Page 30 



THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 31 

handful of his men finally reached Bergen; Anders 
stayed in Greenland. More than five centuries 
afterward, a Scandinavian farmer, grubbing for 
stumps in a Minnesota marsh, found overgrown by 
the roots of a tulip tree a stone with an inscription in 
Runic letters, took it to learned men and had it 
translated. 

" 8 Goths and 22 Norsemen upon journey of dis- 
covery from Vinland westward. We had camp by two 
rocks one day 's journey from this stone. We were 
out fishing one day. When we returned home we 
found ten men red with blood and dead. A V M 
save us from evil. have ten men by the sea to 

look after our ship 14 days journey from this island. 
Year 1362." 

NOTES 

1. Skal or skoal was the Norwegian word used in drinking a 
health. 

2. The description of the Norse galley is taken from Du Chaillu's 
"Land of the Midnight Sun," in which the construction of one which 
was unearthed at Nydam in Jutland is described (Vol. I. 380). The 
galley "Viking" built in Norway on the model of an actual Viking 
ship of the early Middle Ages, was taken across the Atlantic in 1893 
by a Norwegian crew of fourteen, anchoring in Lake Michigan, after 
a voyage in which they had no shelter except an awning and cooked 
their own food as best they could. 

3. The question of the actual whereabouts of Leif Ericsson's booths 
and Thorfin Karlsefne's later settlement has never been positively 
decided. The Knutson expedition to Greenland is an historical fact. 
It left Norway about 1354 and returned about 1364. It is not positively 
known that Knutson attempted the rediscovery of Vinland, unless 
what is known as the Kensington Rune Stone is evidence of it. The 
writer has adopted the theory that he did take a party southward, 
landing at Halifax, and left a part of his men there, intending to 
return with more colonists; that on returning to Norway he found 
the country in the throes of war and abandoned any thought of further 
settlement, leaving his men to find their way back as they could. 

4. The Indian phrases and legends referred to as learned by the 
Wind-wife are Abenaki. 



32 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

5. According to historians the region along the St. Lawrence and 
the Great Lakes was for a long time inhabited by tribes belonging 
to the great Ojibway nation. Their territory extended nearly to the 
western boundary of what is now Minnesota. Southward were the 
tribes later known as Iroquois. 

6. Accounts of the open galleys of the Northmen agree in describing 
them as small and light compared with the later decked ships. The 
open " sea-serpent " of forty-two feet, with her mast unshipped was 
heavier but not much bigger than the largest Indian carrying-canoes 
such as were used in the fur-trade, and these were taken from the 
St. Lawrence through the Great Lakes. Vikings landing in Europe 
were prepared not only to return by a new route but even to take 
their boats apart or build new ones if necessary. 

7. Bayard Taylor, visiting the Saguenay and the St. Lawrence 
immediately after a sojourn in Norway, speaks of his inability to be 
impressed as others had been, by the height of the cliffs and water- 
falls of Canada, although fully appreciating the beauty of the 
scenery. 

8. The Sioux or Dakotas, who occupied the Great Plains, were 
hereditary enemies of the Ojibways. In the Ojibway language one 
name for these Plains Indians indicated that they were in the habit 
of mutilating their victims. 

9. The monument known as the Kensington Rune Stone was found 
near Kensington, Minnesota, and is fully described in the reports of 
the Minnesota Historical Society. It was the subject of many argu- 
ments at first. Well known authorities pronounced it a forgery, 
while other well known authorities declared it genuine. It was 
pointed out that the language used was not that of the time of Leif 
Ericsson, but much more modern; but later it was found that the 
inscription was exactly such as would have been written about the 
middle of the fourteenth century, when Knutson's expedition was in 
Greenland. Aside from the obvious lack of motive for a forgery, 
investigation showed that neither the farmer nor any one who might 
have been in a position to bury the stone where it was found had any 
knowledge of Runic writing. Moreover, if the stone had been a 
forgery it would seem that the forger would have used the name of 
some well known leader, whereas no name is mentioned. If Knutson 
had been with the expedition he would certainly have seen to it that 
his presence was recorded. 

Otter Tail Lake, just north of the place where the stone was dis- 
covered, was one of the points marking the boundary between the 
Ojibway and Dakota country. The position of the runes on the stone 
is precisely what it would be if the inscription had been finished, or 
nearly finished, as a guide to future exploration, and the account of 
the massacre added as a warning. 



THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE 33 

A song commonly sung at the time of the Black Death contains the 
lines: 

" The Black Plague sped over land and sea 

And swept so many a board. 

That will I now most surely believe, 

It was not with the Lord's will. 

Help us God and Mary, 

Save us all from evil." 



THE NAVIGATORS 

We were Prince Henry's gentlemen, — 

His gentlemen were we, 
To dare the gods of Heathendom, 

Whoever they might be, — 
To do our master's sovereign will 

Upon a trackless sea. 

We were Prince Henry's gentlemen, 

And undismayed we went 
To fight for Lusitania 

Wherever we were sent, — 
The stars had laid our course for us, 

And we were well content. 

We were Prince Henry's gentlemen. 

And though our flagship lie 
Where white the great-winged albatross 

Came wheeling down the sky, 
Or black abysses yawned for us. 

We could not fear to die. 

We were Prince Henry's gentlemen, — 

Around the Cape of Wrath 
We sailed our wooden cockleshells — 

Great pride the pilot hath 
To voyage to-day the Indian Sea — 

But we marked out his path! 



34 



Ill 

SEA OF DARKNESS 

THOSE things that you say cannot be true, Fer- 
nao ! How do you know that the sea turns black 
and dreadful just behind those heavenly clouds? If 
there are hydras, and gorgons, and sea-snakes that can 
swallow a ship, and a great black hand reaching up 
out of a whirlpool to drag men down, why do we 
lever see them here? Look at that sea. can there 
be anything in the world more beautiful?" 

The vehement small speaker waved her slender hand 
with a gesture that seemed to take in half the horizon. 
The old Moorish garden, overrun with the brilliant 
blossoms that drink their hues from the sea, over- 
looked the harbor. Across the huddled many-colored 
houses the ten-year-old Beatriz and her playfellow 
Fernao could see the western ocean in a great half- 
circle, bounded by the mysterious line above which 
three tiny caravels had just risen. The sea to-day was 
exquisite, bluer than the heavens that arched above it. 
The wave-crests looked like a flock of sea-doves play- 
ing on the sunlit sparkling waters. Fernao from his 
seat on the crumbling wall watched the incoming ships 
with the far-sighted gaze of a sailor. Portuguese 
through and through, the son and grandson of men who 
had sailed at the bidding of the great Prince Henry, 
he felt that he could speak with authority.^ 

" Of course I am telling you the truth. You are 

35 



36 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

very wise about the sea — you who never saw It until 
two weeks ago! Gil Andrade has been to places that 
you Castilians never even heard of. He has seen 
whales, and mermaids, and the Sea of Darkness Itself! 
He has been to the Gold Coast beyond Bojador, where 
the people are fried black like charcoal, and the rivers 
are too hot to drink." 

"Then why didn't he die?" inquired the unbeliev- 
ing Beatriz. 

" Because he didn't stay there long enough. And 
there are devils In the forest, stronger than ten men, 
and all covered with shaggy hair — " 

" I will not listen to such nonsense ! Do you think 
that because I am Spanish, and a girl, I am without 
understanding? Tio Sancho, is it true that there is a 
Sea of Darkness? " 

Sancho Serrao was an old seaman, as any one would 
know by his eyes and his walk. For fifty years he had 
used the sea, as ship-boy, sailor, and pilot. His daugh- 
ter Catharina had been the nurse of Beatriz, and he 
had brought coral, shells and queer toys to the little 
thing from the time she could toddle to his knee. 

" What has Fernao been saying to thee, pomblnha 
agreste? " (little wood-dove) he asked soberly, though 
his eyes twinkled ever so little. He seated himself as 
he spoke, on an ancient bench that rested its back 
against the wall just where the wind was sweetest. 
Under the fragrances of ripening vineyards and flower- 
ing shrubs there was always the sharp clean smell of 
the sea. 

" He believes all that Gil Andrade and Joao Pan- 
cado tell him as if it were the Credo," Beatriz began, 
her words flung out like sparks from a little crackling 
fire. " He says that there is a Sea of Darkness out 



SEA OF DARKNESS 37 

away beyond the Falcon Islands, where ships are 
drawn into a great pit under the edge of the world. 
And he says that ships cannot go too far south be- 
cause the sun is so near it would burn them, and they 
cannot go too far north because the icebergs will catch 
them and crush them. If I were a man, I would sail 
straight out there, into the sunset, and show them 
what my people dared to do ! " 

Old Sancho was not all Portuguese. In his veins 
ran the blood of the three great seafaring races of 
southern Europe — the Genoese, the Lusitanian and 
the Vizcayan — and their jealousies and rivalries 
amused him. He had spent most of his life in the 
feluccas and caravels of Lisbon and Oporto, because 
when he was young they went where no other ships 
dared even follow; but he did not believe that the last 
word in discovery had been said even by Dom Hen- 
riques at Sagres, or the Mappe-Monde of Fra Mauro 
in Venice. 

" Not so fast there, velinha (small candle) " he cau- 
tioned, raising a whimsical forefinger. " So said many 
of us in our youth. And when we had sailed for 
weeks, and all our provisions were mouldy or weevilly, 
and our water-casks warped and leaking so that we 
had to catch the rain in our shirts, we began to wonder 
what it was we had come for. The sea won't be 
mocked or threatened. She has ways of her own, the 
old witch, to tame the vainglorious. And 't is true 
enough," the old pilot went on with a quizzing look at 
Fernao on his insecure perch, " that sailors have a 
bad habit of doubling and trebhng their recollections 
when they find anybody who will listen. I don't know 
why they do it. Maybe it is because having told a per- 
fectly true tale which nobody believed, they think that 



38 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

a little more or a little less will do no harm. For this 
you must remember, my children, — that at sea many 
things happen which when told no one believes to be 
true." 

" I would believe anything you told me, Tio Sancho," 
promised Beatriz, all love and confidence in her little 
glowing face. 

" Ay, would you now? What if I said that I have 
seen a ship with all sail set coming swiftly before the 
wind, in a place where no wind was, to stir our hair who 
beheld it — and sailing moreover through the air at 
the height of a tall mast-head above the sea? And a 
mountain of ice half a league long and as high as the 
Giralda at Seville, floating in a sea as blue as this one, 
and as warm? And islands with mountains that 
smoke, appearing and disappearing in broad dayhght? 
Yet all of these are common sights at sea." 

" But is there a Sea of Darkness, verily, verily, tio 
caro?" persisted Beatriz. The old man shook his 
head, with a little quiet smile. 

" I'll not say there is not. And I'll not say there is. 
I saw a Sea of Darkness on the second voyage that ever 
I made, but that's all." 

"Oh, tell us all the story!" begged Beatriz, and 
Fernao silently slid from the wall and came closer. 

" The commander of our ship was Gonsales Zarco, 
one of Dom Henriques' gentlemen. Years before 
he'd been caught by a gale on his way to Africa, and 
driven north on to an island that he named because of 
that, Puerto Santo (Holy Haven). So when he came 
that way again he stopped to see how the settlement 
that was planted there prospered, and found the peo- 
ple in great trouble of mind. They showed him that 
a thick black cloud hung upon the sea to the northwest 



SEA OF DARKNESS 39 

of the island, filling the air to the very heavens and 
never going away; and out of this cloud, they said, 
came strange noises, not like any they had heard be- 
fore. They dared not sail far from their island, for 
they said that if a man lost sight of land thereabouts 
it was a miracle if he ever returned. They believed 
that place to be the great abyss, the mouth of hell. 
But learned men held the opinion that this cloud hid the 
island of Cipango, where the Seven Bishops had taken 
refuge from the Moors and the Saracens. 

" Certainly the cloud was there, for we all saw it, 
and when the Commander said that he would stay to 
see whether it would change when the moon changed, 
we liked it not, I can tell you. And when we learned 
that he was minded to sail straight into the darkness 
and see what lay behind it, why, there were some who 
would have run away — if they could have run any- 
where but into the sea. 

" But we had a Spanish pilot, Morales, who had 
once been a prisoner in Morocco, and there he knew 
two Englishmen who had sailed these seas in time past. 
Their ship had been lying ready to sail for France, 
when late at night Robert Macham, a gentleman of 
their country, came hurriedly aboard with his lady love 
whom he had carried off from her home in Bristol, and 
between dark and dawn the captain weighed anchor and 
was off. Then being driven from the course the ship 
was cast on a thickly wooded island with a high moun- 
tain in the middle, where they dwelt not long, for the 
lady died, and Macham died of grief. The crew left 
the island and were wrecked in Morocco and made 
slaves. All this was many years before, for the Eng- 
lishmen had grown old in slavery, and Morales himself 
had grown old since he heard the tale. 



40 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

" It was the belief of Morales that this was the is- 
land of which they told, and that the cloud which hung 
above the waters was the mist arising from those dense 
woods which covered it. The upshot was that the com- 
mander set sail one morning early and steered straight 
for the cloud. 

" The nearer we came the higher and thicker looked 
the darkness that spread over the sea, and we heard 
about noon a great roaring of the waves. Still Gon- 
sales held his course, and when the wind failed he or- 
dered out the boats to tow the ship into the cloud, and 
I was one of those who rowed. As we got closer it 
was not quite so dark, but the roaring was louder, al- 
though the sea was smooth. Then through the dark- 
ness we beheld tall black objects which we guessed to 
be giants walking in the water, but as we came nearer 
we saw that they were great rocks, and before us 
loomed a high mountain covered with thick woods. 

" We found no place to land but a cave under a 
rock that overhung the sea, and that was trodden all 
over the bottom by the sea-wolves, so that Gonsales 
named it the Camera dos Lobos. The island, because 
of its forests, he called Madeira. When we came 
back, having taken possession of the island for the King, 
he sent a colony to settle upon it, and the first boy and 
girl born there were named Adam and Eva. The peo- 
ple set fire to the trees, which were in their way, and 
could not put out the fire, so that it burned for seven 
years and all the trees were destroyed. And the King 
gave our commander the right to carry as supporters 
on his coat-of-arms two sea-wolves." 

Beatriz drew a long breath. " Weren't you very 
scared, Tio Sancho? " 

" Sailors must not be scared, little one. Or if they 



SEA OF DARKNESS 41 

are, they must never let their arms and legs be scared. 
We knew that we had to obey orders or be dead, so we 
obeyed. I have been glad many a time since that I 
sailed with Gonsales and old Morales to the discovery 
of Madeira." 

"What are sea-wolves?" asked Fernao. 

" Like no beast that ever you saw, my son. They 
have the fore part of the body like a dog or bear, the 
hind part ending in a tail like a fish, but with hair, not 
scales, on the body; the head has a thick mane, and the 
jaws are large and strong. They are no more seen 
on that island, for they went there only because it was 
never visited by men." 

" Did they try to drive the people away? " 

" No; they do not fight men unless men attack them. 
But the settlers were once driven off Puerto Santo by 
animals, and not very fierce animals at that." The 
old pilot grinned. " They were driven away by rab- 
bits. Somebody brought rabbits there and let them 
loose, and in a few years there were so many that every- 
thing that was planted was eaten green. The people 
who live on that island now have made a strict rule 
about rabbits." 

The children's laughter echoed the dry chuckle of 
the old man. Then Fernao, unwilling to abandon his 
authorities, — 

" But if the Sea of Darkness and the great abyss are 
not in the western ocean, why haven't they found out 
what really is there? " 

" That, my son, is more than I can tell you," said 
Sancho Serrao, getting up. " I sailed where I was told, 
and I never was told to sail due west from Lisbon. 
But here is a man who can answer your question, if any 
one can. Welcome to my humble dwelling, Senhor 



42 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Colombo ! Shall we go into the house, or will you find 
it pleasanter in the garden? " 

The new-comer was a tall man of middle age, al- 
though at first sight he looked older, because of his 
white hair. The fresh complexion, alert walk, and 
keen thoughtful blue eyes were those of a man not old 
in either mind or body. He smiled in answer to the 
greeting, and replied with a quick wave of the hand. 
" Do not disturb yourself, I beg of you, my friend. 
The garden is very pleasant. 1 have come on an er- 
rand of my own this time. Did you ever see, in your 
voyages to Africa or elsewhere, any such carving as 
this?" 

He held out a curious worm-eaten bit of reddish 
brown wood, rudely ornamented with carved figures in 
rehef. Old Sancho took it and turned it about, exam- 
ining it with narrowed attentive eyes. 

" Where did it come from? " he asked, finally. 

" From the beach at Puerto Santo. My little son 
Diego picked it up, the day before I came away from 
the island." 

" Now that is curious. I was just telling the young 
ones about an adventure of my youth, when Gonsales 
Zarco touched there on his way to Madeira. With 
your good permission I will leave you for a few minutes 
and rummage in an old sea-chest, and see whether there 
is any flotsam in it to compare with this." 

Left alone with the stranger, Fernao and Beatriz 
looked at him with shy curiosity. They had seen him 
before, and knew him to be a mapmaker in the King's 
service, but he had never before been within speak- 
ing distance. He seemed to like children, for he 
smiled at them very kindly and spoke to them almost 
at once. 



SEA OF DARKNESS 43 

" And you were hearing about the discovery of 
Madeira? " 

" Ay, Senhor," Beatriz answered with demure dig- 
nity. 

" I live not very far from that Island. It seems like 
living on the western edge of the world." 

" Senhor," asked Fernao with sudden daring, " what 
is beyond the edge of the world? " 

" There is no edge, my boy. The world is round — - 
like an orange." ^ 

In all their fancies they had never thought of such 
a thing as that. Beatriz looked at the tall man with 
silent amazement, and Fernao looked as if he would 
like to ask who could prove the statement. The strang- 
er's smile was amused but quite comprehending, as if 
he was not at all surprised that they should doubt him. 

" See," he went on, taking an orange from the bas- 
ket that stood by, " suppose this little depression where 
the stem lost Its hold to be Jerusalem, the center of our 
world; then this is Portugal — " he traced with the 
point of a penknife the outhne of the great western 
peninsula. " Here you see are the capes — Saint Vin- 
cent, Finlsterre, the great rock the Arabs call Geber- 
al-Tarif — the Mediterranean — the northern coast of 
Africa — so. Beyond are Arabia and India, and the 
Spice Islands which we do not know all about — then 
Cathay, where Marco Polo visited the Great Khan — 
you have heard of that? Yes? On the eastern and 
southern shore of Cathay Is a great sea in which are 
many islands — Cipangu here, and to the south Java 
Major and Java Minor. We are told In the Book of 
Esdras that six parts of the earth are land and one 
part water, so here we cut away the skin where there 
Is any sea, — " 



44 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

The miniature globe took form, like fairy mapmak- 
ing, under the cosmographer's skilful fingers, and the 
children watched, fascinated. 

" But," cried Beatriz wonderingly, " a ship could sail 
around the world ! " 

Colombo nodded and smiled. " So it was written in 
the ' Travels of Sir John Maundeville ' more than a 
hundred years ago. But no ship has done so." 

*' Why not? " asked Fernao. 

" Chiefly, perhaps, because of tales like that of the 
Sea of Darkness and Satan's hand. And it is true that 
a ship venturing very far westward is drawn out of its 
course, as if the earth were not a perfect round, but 
sloped upward to the south. My own belief is," — he 
seemed for a moment to forget that he was talking to 
children, " that it is not perfectly round, but somewhat 
like this pear, — " he selected a short chubby pear from 
the basket, " and that on this mountain may be a cool 
and lovely region which was once Paradise." 

" Oh! " cried Beatriz, her face alight with the glory 
of the thought. The geographer smiled at her and 
went on. 

" Also you see that the ocean is on this side of the 
earth very much greater than the Mediterranean. We 
do not know how long it would take to cross it. I have 
lately received a map from the famous Florentine Tos- 
canelli which — ah!" he interrupted himself, "here 
comes our good friend Master Serrao." 

It had taken the pilot longer than he expected to 
hunt over his reHcs of old voyages, and there was noth- 
ing, after all, like the piece of wood cast ashore by the 
Atlantic waves. Old Sancho turned it over, examined 
the edges of the carving, and shook his head. 

" No; that is not African work; at least it is not like 




'THE MINIATURE GLOBE TOOK FORM AS THE CHILDREN 
WATCHED, FASCINATED." 

^Page 44 



SEA OF DARKNESS 45 

any work of the black men that I have ever seen. They 
can all work iron, and this was made without the use of 
iron tools; that I am sure of. Some of our men were 
shipwrecked once where they had to make stone and 
shells serve their turn, and I know the look of wood 
that has been worked with such tools. And the wood 
itself is not like anything I have from Africa. It is 
more like the timber of the East." 

Now the stranger's eyes lighted with keener inter- 
est. 

" You think it may be Indian, do you? " 

" It may. But how in the name of Sao Cristobal 
did it come here? Besides, the people of India under- 
stand the use of metal as well as we do, or better." 

" May there not be wild men in remote islands of 
the Indian seas? " 

" That might be. Gil Andrade has been in those 
parts, and he says there are more islands than he could 
count. I have sometimes had occasion to take his stor- 
ies with a pinch of salt, but if there are islands where 
wild people live they would make such things as this. 
And now I think of it, I once picked up a paddle my- 
self, floating off the Azores, that was some such wood 
as this, but not carved. But the queerest thing I ever 
found was this nut. Look at it." 

It was part of a nutshell as big as a man's head and 
as hard as wood, " The inside was quite spoiled," 
went on the old seaman, " but so far as I could judge 
it was no kin to the palm nuts we get. I kept the shell, 
and I have never found any merchant who could match 
it. Now the current sets toward our coast from the 
west at a certain point, and that is where all these odd 
things come ashore." 

The guest nodded. " My brother-in-law and I have 



46 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

talked much of these matters. One of his captains saw 
some time ago the floating bodies of two men, brown- 
skinned, with straight black hair, not like the natives 
of any part of Europe or Africa. Another thing which 
is strange, though I hold it not as important as they 
do, is that the people of Madeira persistently declare 
that they see a great island appear and disappear to the 
westward. According to their description it has lofty 
mountains and wooded valleys, and some say it is At- 
lantis and some Saint Brandan's Isle. No ship sailing 
that way has ever landed there, however." 

Sancho's eyes turned seaward. " It is marvelous," 
he said after a pause, " what things men think they see. 
And you think, senhor, that the world is not yet all 
known to us? " 

" I do not know." Colombo stood up to take his 
departure. " If God hath reserved any great work to 
be done. He hath also chosen the man who is to do it. 
His tasks are not done by accident, or left to the blind 
or the selfish. Toscanelli thinks that since the world is 
round, we should reach the Indies by saihng due west 
from this coast, but in that case India would seem to 
be far greater than we have believed. If I had the 
ships and the men I would venture it. But at this time 
the King is altogether taken up with the eastward route 
to the Indies. It was said of old time, ' He that be- 
lieveth shall not make haste.' " 

" But you will sail to Paradise some day, will you not, 
senhor? " asked Beatriz, treasuring the tiny globe in 
one careful hand while the other shaded her eyes from 
the level rays of the evening sun. 

" There is only one way to Paradise, little maid. 
That is by the will of our Lord. And if you, my lad, 
are the first to sail round the world, remember that the 



SEA OF DARKNESS 47 

sea is His, and He made it. Man makes his own 
Sea of Darkness by ignorance, and hate, and fear." 

NOTES 

1. Prince Henry of Portugal, often called " Henry the Navigator " 
built the first naval observatory in Europe at Sagres. He may be 
said to have laid the foundation of the Portuguese and later Spanish 
discoveries. In the time of Columbus the Mappe-Mondo or Map of 
the World of a Venetian monk was considered the most complete map 
yet made. 

2. The statement has been carelessly made in some juvenile books 
dealing v?ith the age of discovery, that in the time of Columbus nobody 
knew that the world was round. This of course is not even approxi- 
mately the case. The conception of the earth as a sphere was gen- 
erally set forth in what might be called books of science, and even in 
some popular works like that of Sir John Maundeville, who died in 
1372. Its acceptance by the public, however, may be said to have 
followed somewhat the course of the Darwinian theory in the nine- 
teenth century. Long after evolution was admitted as a truth by 
scientific men there were schools and even colleges which refused to 
teach if, and in fact it was not accepted by the public until the gen- 
eration which first heard of it had died. 



SUNSET SONG 

Down upon our seaward light, 

Swept by all the winds that blow, 
Birds come reeling in their flight — 

{Ay de ?ni, Cristofero!) 
Petrels tossing on the gale, 
Falcons daring sleet and hail, 
Curlews whistling high and far, 
Waifs that cross the harbor bar 
Borne from isles we do not know — 
{Ay de mi, Cristofero!) 

Round our island haven blest 

Waves like drifted mountain snow 
Break from out the shoreless West — 

{Ay de mi, Cristofero!) 
Cast ashore a broken spar 
Born beneath some alien star, 
Broken, beaten by the wave — 
In what far-off unknown grave 
Lie the hands that shaped it so? 
{Ay de mi, Cristofero!) 

Sails upon the gray world's edge 
Like mute phantoms come and go, — 

Life and honor men will pledge — 
{Ay de mi, Cristofero!) 

For the pearls and gems and gold 

That the burning Indies hold. 

Or the Guinea coast they dare 

With its fever-poisoned air 

For the slaves they capture so 
{Ay de mi, Cristofero!) 
48 



SUNSET SONG 49 

In our chamber small to-nfght, 

Fair as love's immortal glow, 
Shines our silver censer-light — 

(Ay de ini, Cristofero!) 
What is this that holds thee fast 
In old histories of the past? 
Put the time-stained parchments by, 
Men have sought where dead men lie 
For the secret thou wouldst know — 

All too long, Cristofero! 



IV 

PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL 

JUAN DE LA COS A, captain of the Santa Maria, 
was prowling about the beach of Gomera in a 
thoroughly dissatisfied frame of mind. His own ship, 
the Gallego before the Admiral re-christened her and 
made her his flagship, was riding trim as a mallard 
within sight of his eye. She would never have kept the 
fleet waiting in the Canaries for a little thing like a 
broken rudder. 

It was the Pinta that had done this, and it was the 
veteran pilot's private opinion that she would behave 
much better if her owners, Gomez Rascon and Christo- 
val Quintero, had been left behind in Palos. But what 
can you do when you have seized a ship for the service 
of the Crown, and turned her over to a captain who 
is a rival ship-owner, and her owners wish to serve in 
her crew and not elsewhere? They cannot be blamed 
for liking to keep an eye on their property! 

"Capitano!" piped a voice at his elbow. He 
looked around, and then he looked down. An under- 
sized urchin with not much on but a pair of 
ragged breeches stared up at him boldly, hands behind 
his back. " Do you know what ails your ship over 
there? " He nodded sideways at the disgraced Pinta. 

The accent was that of Bilbao in the captain's own 
native province, Vizcaya. Ordinarily he would have 
cuffed the speaker heels over head for impudence, but 

50 



PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL 51 

the dialect made him pause. Besides, he wanted to 
hear something to confirm his suspicions. 

" She is no ship of mine," he growled, " and any- 
way, what do you know about it? " 

*' I know much more than they think I do. The 
calkers did not half do their work before she left port. 
I'd like to sail in her if she were properly looked after. 
But when a man goes out on the dolphins' track he 
likes to come home again, you know." 

"A man! Do babes take a ship round Bojador? 
And who may you call yourself, zagallo (strong 
youth) ? " 

" I am Pedro, son of Pedro who was an escaladero 
(chmber) at the siege of Alhama. He was killed on 
the way home, and my mother died of grief, so that 
I get my bread where the saints put it. People say 
that they unlocked all the jails to get you your crew 
for the Indies, and now I see that it is true." 

Juan de la Cosa knew the untamable sauciness of 
the VIzcayan breed, and knew as well the loyalty that 
went with it. " Son," he said seriously, " what do you 
know of this matter?" The boy put aside his inso- 
lence and spoke gravely. 

" I know that these fellows who have been com- 
manded to serve your Admiral hate him, and will make 
him lose his venture if they can. I would sooner put 
to sea in a meal-tub with myself that I can trust, than 
in a Cadiz galley manned with plotters. When they 
hauled this fine ship up on the beach I asked for a job, 
and the lazy fellows were glad enough of help. I 
never minded doing their \wDrk if they hadn't kicked 
me. When I heard them planning I said to myself, 
' Pedro, mi hidalgo, a crow in hand is worth two buz- 



52 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

zards in the bush waiting to pick your bones.' Your 
Admiral may have to go back to Castile and eat 
crow. 

" They have agreed that they will sail seven hun- 
dred leagues and no more, since that is the distance 
from here to the Indies if your map is true. If the 
Admiral refuse to turn back in case land is not found 
they will pitch him into the sea and tell the world that 
he was star-gazing and fell overboard, being an old 
man and unused to perilous voyages. He should get 
him another crew — ' if he can." 

This was important information. Yet to go back 
might be more dangerous than to go on. The expedi- 
tion had already been delayed a fortnight with making 
a rudder for the Pinta, stopping her leaks, and replac- 
ing the lateen sails of the Nina with square ones, that 
she might be able to keep up with the others. Another 
week must pass before they could sail. If they re- 
turned to Palos it was doubtful whether they could get 
any men at all to replace the disloyal ones. Too much 
delay might cause the withdrawal of Martin Pinzon 
and his brother Vicente, owners of the Nina; and if 
they went, most of the seamen who were worth their 
salt would go also. La Cosa himself in the Admiral's 
place would go on and take the chance of mutiny, trust- 
ing in his own power to prevent or subdue it. 

" Pedro," he said, " have you told this to any one 
else?" 

*' Not a soul." 

*' Would you like to sail with us? " 

"Will a wolf bite? Why do you suppose I told 
you all this? " 

" Bite your tongue then, wolf-cub, until I have seen 
the Admiral. Where shall I find you if I want you? " 



PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL 53 

*' Tia Josefa over there lets me sleep in the court- 
yard." 

" Very well — now, off with you." 

The Admiral said exactly what the pilot had thought 
he would say. He knew himself to be looked upon 
with envy and dislike, as a Genoese, and the Spaniards 
who made up his three crews had been collected as 
with a rake from the unwilling Andalusian seaports. 
It was decided that the mutinous sailors should be scat- 
tered so that they could not easily act together. Pedro 
was taken on as cabin-boy, for he was thirteen, and 
wiser than his age. 

On that May day when Christoval Colon, ^ the hare- 
brained foreigner whom the King and Queen had made 
an Admiral, read the royal orders in the Church of 
San Jorge in Palos, there was amazement, wrath and 
horror in that small seaport. Queen Ysabel had in- 
deed been so rash as to pledge her jewels to meet the 
cost of this expedition; but the royal treasurers, look- 
ing over their accounts, noted that Palos owed a fine 
to the Crown which had never been paid. Very good; 
let Palos contribute the use and maintenance of two 
ships for two months, and let the magistrates of the 
Andalusian ports hunt up shipmasters and crews and 
supplies. The officers of the government came with 
Colon to enforce this order. 

In vain did the Pinzon brothers, who had really 
been convinced by the arguments of Colon, use all their 
influence to secure him a proper equipment. Even af- 
ter they had themselves enlisted as captains, with their 
own ship the Nina, they could not get men enough to 
go on so doubtful a venture. The royal officers finally 
took to the reckless course of pardoning all prisoners 
guilty of any crime short of murder or treason, on con- 



54 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

dition of their shipping for the voyage. At least half 
the sailors of the three ships were pressed men. 

The Santa Maria, largest of the three caravels, was 
ninety feet long and twenty broad. She was a decked 
ship; the others had only the tiny cabin and forecastle. 
A caravel was never intended for long voyages into 
unknown seas. Her builders designed her for coasting 
trade, not for a quick voyage independent of wind and 
tide; but on the other hand she was cheaper to build 
and to sail than a Genoese galley. The Admiral be- 
lieved that in the end the smallness of the ships would 
be no disadvantage. Among the estuaries, bays and 
groups of islands which he expected to find, they could 
go anywhere. Including shipmasters, pilots and crews 
the fleet carried eighty-seven men and three ship-boys, 
besides the personal servants of the Admiral, a physi- 
cian, a surgeon, an interpreter and a few adventurers. 
The interpreter was a converted Jew who could speak 
not only several European languages but Arabic and 
Chaldean. 

" A retinue of servants indeed ! " observed Fonseca, 
the bishop, when the door had closed upon the Ad- 
miral of the Indies. " Since all enlisted in the expedi- 
tion are at his service, why does he demand lackeys? " 

But the head of the Genoese navigator had not been 
turned by his honors. No man cared less for display 
than he did, personally. He knew very well, however, 
that unless he maintained his own dignity the rabble 
under his command might be emboldened to cut his 
throat, seize the ships and become pirates. The men 
whom he could trust were altogether too few to con- 
trol those he could not, if it came to an open fight, — 
but it must not be allowed to come to that. It was 
not agreeable to squabble with Fonseca about the num- 



PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL 55 

ber or servants he was allowed to have, but he must 
have personal attendants who were not discharged con- 
victs. 

On the open seas, removed from their lamenting 
and despondent relatives, the crews gradually subsided 
into a state of discipline. The quarter-deck is perhaps 
the severest test of character known. Despite them- 
selves the sailors began to feel the serene and kindly 
strength of the man who was their master. 

With a tact and understanding as great as his cour- 
age and self-command Colon told his men more than 
they had ever known of the Indies. The East had 
for generations been the enchanted treasure-house of 
Europe. Arabic, Venetian, Genoese and Portuguese 
traders had brought from it spices, rare woods, gold, 
diamonds, pearls, silk, and other foreign luxuries. But 
the wide and varied reading of the Admiral had given 
him more definite information. He told of the gilded 
temples of Cipangu, the porcelain towers of Cathay, 
rajahs' elephants in gilded and jeweled trappings 
golden idols with eyes of great glowing gems, thrones 
of ebony inlaid with patterns of diamonds, emeralds 
and rubies, rich cargoes of spices, dyewood, fine cotton 
and silk, pearl fisheries, the White Feast of Cambalu 
and the Khan's great hall where six thousand courtiers 
gathered. Portugal already was reaching out toward 
these Indies, groping her way around the African coast. 
Were they, Spaniards and Christians, to be outdone by 
Portuguese and Arab traders? No men ever had so 
great a future. Not only the wealth of the Indies, but 
the glory of winning heathen empires to abandon their 
idols for the Christian faith, was the adventure to 
which they were pledged; and he strove to kindle their 
spirits from his own. 



56 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

To Pedro the cabin-boy, listening in silence, it was 
like an entrance into another world. When he asked 
to be taken on he had been moved simply by a boy's 
desire to 'go where he had not been before. Now he 
served a demigod, who led men where none had dared 
go. The Admiral might have the glory of rediscover- 
ing the western route to the Indies; his cabin-boy was 
discovering him. 

The sea was beautifully calm, and there was time for 
talk and speculation. A drifting mast, to which no- 
body would have given two thoughts anywhere else, 
was pointed out as an evil omen. Pedro grinned cheer- 
fully and elevated his nose. 

" Do you not believe in omens, Pedro? " asked the 
Admiral, somewhat amused. He had not found many 
Spaniards who did not. 

" One does not beheve all one hears, my lord," the 
youngster answered, coolly. " Tia Josefa saw ill 
omens a dozen times a week, all sure death; and she is 
ninety years old. A mast drifting with the current is 
usual. When I see one drifting against it I will begin 
to worry." 

The jumpy nerves of the sailors were easily upset. 
They might have been calmer if the sea had been less 
calm. It is hard for Spanish blood to endure inaction 
and suspense together. Day after day a soft strong 
wind wafted them westward. Ruiz, one of the pilots, 
bluntly declared that he did not see how they could 
ever sail back to Spain against this wind, whether they 
reached the Indies or not. 

" Pedro," said the Admiral quietly, " what do you 
think?" 

Pedro hesitated only an instant. " My lord," he 



PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL 57 

answered boldly, " if we cannot go back we must go 
on — around the world." 

" So we can," smiled the Admiral. " But it will not 
come to that." And Ruiz, reassured and rather 
ashamed of his fears, told the other grumblers if they 
had seen as much rough weather as he had they 
would know when they were well off. 

But after a time even the pilots took fright. The 
compass needle no longer pointed to the North Star, 
but half a point or more to the northwest of it. They 
had visions of the fleet helplessly drifting without a 
guide upon a vast unknown sea. It was not then 
known that the action of the magnetic pole upon the 
needle varies in different parts of the earth, but the 
quick mind of the Admiral found an explanation which 
quieted their fears. He told them that the real north 
pole was a fixed point indeed, but not necessarily the 
North Star. While this star might be in line with the 
pole when seen from the coast of Spain, it would not, 
of course, be in the same relative position when seen 
from a point hundreds of miles to the west. 

On September 15 a meteor fell, which might be an- 
other omen — nobody could say exactly what it meant. 
Then about three hundred and sixty leagues from the 
Canaries the ships began to encounter patches of float- 
ing yellow-green sea-weed, which grew more numer- 
ous until the fleet was sailing in a vast level expanse 
of green like an ocean meadow. Tuna fish played in 
the waters; on one of the patches of floating weed 
rested a live crab. A white tropical bird of a kind 
never known to sleep upon the sea came flying toward 
them, alighting for a moment in the rigging. The 
owners of the Pinta predicted that they would all be 



58 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

caught in this ocean morass to starve, or die of thirst, 
for the light winds were not strong enough to drive 
the ships through it as easily as they had sailed at first. 
The Admiral, quite undisturbed, suggested that in his 
experience land-birds usually meant land not very far 
away. 

Colon always answered frankly the questions put to 
him, but there was one secret which he kept to himself 
from the beginning. Knowing that he would be likely 
to have trouble when he reached the seven-hundred- 
league limit his crews had set for him, he kept two 
reckonings. One was for his private journal, the other 
was for all to see.. He took the actual figures of each 
day's run as set down in his private record, subtracted 
from them a certain percentage and gave out this re- 
vised reckoning to the fleet. He, and he alone, knew 
that they were nearly seven hundred leagues from 
Palos already, instead of five hundred and fifty. Ac- 
cording to Toscanelli's calculation, by sailing west from 
the Canaries along the thirtieth parallel of latitude he 
should land somewhere on the coast of Cipangu; but 
the map of Toscanelli might be incorrect. If the ocean 
should prove to be a hundred or more leagues wider 
than the chart showed it, they would have to go on, all 
the same. 

Even after they were out of the se-aweed there was 
something weird and unnatural in the sluggish calm of 
the sea. Light winds blew from the west and south- 
west, but there were no waves, as by all marine experi- 
ence there should have been. On September 25 the 
sea heaved silently in a mysterious heavy swell, with- 
out any wind. Then the wind once more shifted to 
the east, and car'ried them on so smoothly that they 
could talk from one ship to another. Martin Pinzon 



PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL 59 

borrowed the Admiral's chart, and it seemed to him 
that according to this they must be near Cipangu, He 
tossed the chart back to the flagship on the end of a 
cord, and gave himself to scanning the horizon. Ten 
thousand maravedis had been promised by the sover- 
eigns to the first man who actually saw land. Suddenly 
Pinzon shouted, " Tierra ! Tierra!" There was a 
low bank of what seemed to be land, about twenty-five 
leagues away to the southwest. Even for this Colon 
hesitated to turn from his pre-arranged course, but at 
last he yielded to the chorus of pleading and protest 
which arose from his ofllicers, set his helm southwest 
and found — a cloud-bank. 

Again and again during the following days the eager 
eyes and strained nerves of the seamen led to sim- 
ilar disappointments. Land birds appeared; some 
alighted fearlessly on the rigging and sang. Dolphins 
frolicked about the keels. Flying-fish, pursued by 
their enemy the bonito (mackerel), rose from the 
water in rainbow argosies, and fell sometimes inside 
the caravels. A heron, a pelican and a duck passed, 
flying southwest. By the true reckoning the fleet had 
sailed seven hundred and fifty leagues. Colon won- 
dered whether there could be an error in the map, or 
whether by swerving from their course they had passed 
between islands into the southern sea. Pedro, as sen- 
sitive as a dog to the moods of his master, watched 
the Admiral's face as he came and went, and wondered 
in his turn. 

The pilots and shipmasters were cautious in express- 
ing their fears within hearing of the sailors, for by 
this time every one in authority knew that open mutiny 
might break out at any moment. On the evening of 
October 10 a delegation of anxious officers came to 



6o DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

explain to the Admiral that they could not hold the 
panic-stricken crews. If no land appeared within a 
week their provisions would not last until they reached 
home; they had not enough water to last through the 
homeward voyage even now. The Admiral knew as 
well as they the horrors of thirst and famine at sea, 
particularly with a crew of the kind they had been 
obliged to ship. What did he intend to do? 

The Admiral, seated at his table, finished the sen- 
tence he was adding in his neat, legible hand to his log, 
put it aside, put the pen in the case which hung at his 
belt, closed his ink-horn. His quiet eyes rested fear- 
lessly on their uneasy faces. 

" This expedition," he said calmly, " has been sent 
out to look for the Indies. With God's blessing we 
shall continue to look for them until we find them. 
Say to the men, however, that if they will wait two or 
three days I think they will see land." 

Next morning Pedro was engaged in polishing his 
master's steel corslet and casque, while near by two or 
three sailors conferred in low tones. 

" We have had enough of promises," growled one. 
" As Rascon says, we are like Fray Agostino's donkey, 
that went over the mountain at a trot, trying to reach 
the bunch of carrots hung on a staff in front of his 
nose." 

There was a half-hearted snicker, and one of the 
men pointed a warning thumb at Pedro. 

"Oh!" said the speaker. "You heard, you little 
beggar? " 

" I did," said Pedro. 

"Well?" 

" Well, I was waiting for the end of the story. As 
I heard it the Abbot charged the old friar with deceiv- 



PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL 6i 

Ing the dumb beast, and he said he had to, because he 
was. dealing with a donkey! " 

Pedro slung the pieces of gleaming plate-mail to his 
shoulder and added as he turned" to go, " You need not 
be afraid that I shall tell the Admiral what you were 
saying. I am not a fool, and he knows how scared 
you are, already." ♦ 

More* signs of land appeared — river weeds, a 
thorny branch with fresh berries like rose-hips, a reed, 
a piece of wood, a carved staff. As always, the vesper 
hymn to the Virgin was sung on the deck of the flag- 
ship, and after service the Admiral briefly addressed 
the men. He reminded them of the singular favor of 
God in granting them so quiet and safe a voyage, and 
recalled his statement made on leaving the Canaries, 
that after they had made seven hundred leagues he 
expected to be so near land that they should not make 
sail after midnight. He told them that in his belief 
they might find land before morning. 

Nobody slept that night. About ten o'clock the 
Admiral, gazing from the top of the castle built up 
on the poop of the Santa Maria, thought that far away 
in the warm darkness he saw a glancing light. 

" Pedro," he said to the boy near him, " do you see 
a light out there? Yes? Call Serior Gutierrez and 
we will see what he makes of it. I have come to the 
pass where I do not trust my own eyes." 

Gutierrez saw it, but when Sanchez of Segovia came 
up, the light had vanished. It seemed to come and go 
as if it were a torch in a fishing-boat or in the hand of 
some one walking. But at two in the morning a gun 
boomed from the Pinta. Rodrigo de Triana, one of 
the seamen, had seen land from the mast-head. 

The sudden sunrise of the tropics revealed a green 



62 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Paradise lapped in tranquil seas. The ships must have 
come up toward it between sunset and midnight. No 
one had been able to imagine with any certainty what 
morning would show. But this was no seaport, or 
coast of any civilized land. People were coming 
down to the shore to watch the approach of the ships, 
but they were wild people, naked and brown, and the 
sight was evidently perfectly new to them. 

The Admiral ordered the ships to cast anchor, and 
the boats were manned and armed. He himself in a 
rich uniform of scarlet held the royal banner of Castile, 
while the brothers Pinzon, commanders of the Pinta 
and the Nina, in their boats, had each a banner em- 
blazoned with a green cross and the crowned initials 
of the sovereigns, Fernando and Ysabel. The air 
was clear and soft, the sea was almost transparent, and 
strange and beautiful fruits could be seen among the 
rich foliage of the trees along the shore. The Ad- 
miral landed, knelt and kissed the earth, offering 
thanks to God, with tears in his eyes; and the other 
captains followed his example. Then rising, he drew 
his sword, and calling upon all who gathered around 
him to witness his action, took possession of the newly- 
discovered island in the name of his sovereigns, and 
gave it the name of San Salvador (Holy Savior). 

The wild people, terrified at the sight of men com- 
ing toward them from these great white-winged birds, 
as they took the ships to be, ran away to the woods, 
but they presently returned, drawn by irresistible 
curiosity. They had no weapons of iron, and one of 
them innocently took hold of a sword by the edge. 
They were delighted with the colored caps, glass beads, 
hawk-bells and other trifles which were given to them, 



PEDRO AND HIS ADMIRAL 63 

and brought the strangers great balls of spun cotton, 
cakes of cassava bread, fruits, and tame parrots. 
Pedro went everywhere, and saw everything, as only 
a boy could. Later, when the flagship was cruising 
among the islands, and the Admiral, worn out by long 
anxiety, lay asleep in his cabin, the helmsman, smother- 
ing a mighty yawn, called Pedro to him. 

" See here, young chap," he said, " we are running 
along the shore of this island and there is no difficulty 
— take my place will you, while I get a nap? " 

The boy hesitated. He would have asked his mas- 
ter, but his master was asleep, and must not be awak- 
ened. This helmsman, moreov^er, was one of the men 
who had been kind to him, ready to answer his ques- 
tions regarding navigation, and loyal to the Admiral. 
Moreover it was not quite the first time that Pedro 
had been allowed to take this responsibility. He ac- 
cepted it now. The man staggered away and lost 
himself in heavy sleep almost before he lay down. 

It was one of the still, breathless nights of the tropic 
seas. Pedro's small strong hands had not grasped the 
helm for a half-hour before the wind freshened, and 
then a tremendous gust swept down upon the flagship 
hurling her right upon the unknown shore. Pedro 
strove desperately with the fearful odds, but before 
the half-awakened sailors heard his call the Santa 
Maria was past repair. No lives were lost, but the 
Admiral decided that it would be necessary to leave a 
part of the men on shore as the beginning of a settle- 
ment. He would not have chosen to do this but for 
the disaster, for the men who made up these crews were 
not promising material for a colony in a wild land. 
But he had no choice In the matter. The two smaller 



64 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

ships would not hold them all. Pedro, shaken with 
sobs, cast himself at the feet of his master and begged 
forgiveness. 

" No one blames you, my son," said the Admiral, 
more touched than he had been for a long time. " Be 
not so full of sorrow for what cannot be helped. The 
wild people are friendly, the land is kind, and when we 
have sailed back to Spain with our news there will be 
no difficulty in returning with as many ships as we may 
need. Nay, I will not leave thee here, Pedro. I think 
that now I could not do without thee." 

Nori 

The name of Columbus took various forms according to the country 
in which he lived. In his native Genoa it would be Cristofero 
Colombo. In Portugal, where he dwelt for many years, it would be 
Cristobal Colombo, and in Spanish Christoval or Cristobal Colon. 
In Latin, which was the common language of all learned men until 
comparatively recent times, the name took the form Christopherus 
Columbus, which has become in modern English Christopher Colum- 
bus. In each story the discoverer is spoken of as he would have been 
spoken of by the characters in that particular story. 



THE QUEEN'S PRAYER 

In this Thy world, O blessed Christ, 

I live but for Thy will, 
To serve Thy cause and drive Thy foes 

Before Thy banner still. 

In rich and stately palaces 

I have my board and bed, 
But Thou didst tread the wilderness 

Unsheltered and unfed. 

My gallant squadrons ride at will 

The undiscover'd sea, 
But Thou hadst but a fishing-boat 

On windy Galilee. 

In valiant hosts my men-at-arms 

Eager to battle go. 
But Thou hadst not a single blade 

To fend Thee from the foe. 

Great store of pearls and beaten gold 
My bold seafarers bring, 
But Thou hadst not a little coin 
To pay for Thy lodging. 

The trust that Thou hast placed in me, 

may I not betray. 

Nor fail to save Thy people from 
The fires of Judgment Day! 

Be strong and stern, O heart, faint heart - 

Stay not, O woman's hand. 
Till by this Cross I bear for Thee 

1 have made clean Thy land! 

65 



THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE 

''^T OMBRE de San Martin! who is that up 

J^^ there like a cat?" 

" Un gato ! Cucarucha en palo ! " 

" If Alonso de Ojeda hears of your calling him a 
cockroach on a mast, he will grind your ribs to a paste 
with a cudgel (os moliesen las costillas a puros 
palos) ! " observed a pale, sharp-faced lad in a shabby 
doublet. The sailor who had made the comparison 
glanced at him and chuckled. 

" Your pardon — hidalgo. I have been at sea so 
much of late that the comparison jumped into my mind. 
Is he a caballero then? " 

" One of the household of the Duke of Medina 
Coeli. He is always doing such things. If he hap- 
pened to think of flying, he would fly. Every one must 
be good at something." 

The performance which they had just been watch- 
ing would fix the name of Ojeda very firmly in the 
minds of those who saw. Queen Ysabel, happening 
to ascend the tower of the cathedral at Seville with her 
courtiers and ladies, remarked upon the daring and 
skill of the Moorish builders. Everywhere in the 
newly conquered cities of Granada were their magnifi- 
cent domes and lofty muezzin towers, often seeming 
like the airy minarets of a mirage. The next instant 
Alonso de Ojeda had walked out upon a twenty-foot 

66 



THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE 67 

timber projecting into space two hundred feet above 
the pavement, and at the very end he stood on one leg 
and waved the other in the air. Returning, he rested 
one foot against the wall and flung an orange clean 
over the top of the tower. He was small, though 
handsome and well-made, and he had now shown a 
muscular strength of which few had suspected him. 

It was natural that the sailor should be interested 
in the people of the court, for he had business there. 
The Admiral of the Indies was making his arrange- 
ments for his second voyage, and he had desired Juan 
de la Cosa to meet him at Seville'. As the pilot stood 
waiting for the Admiral to come- out from an interview 
with Fonseca he had a good look at many of the per- 
sons who were to join in this second expedition. 

" There will be no unlocking the jail doors to scrape 
together crews for this fleet, I warrant you," thought 
the old sailor exultantly as he stood in the shadow of 
the GIralda watching Castile parade itself before the 
new hero. Here were Diego Colon, a quiet-looking 
youth, the youngest brother of the Admiral; Antonio 
de Marchena the astronomer, a learned monk; Juan 
Ponce de Leon, a nobleman from the neighborhood of 
Cadiz with a brilliant military record; Francisco de las 
Casas with his son Bartolome; and the valiant young 
courtier whom all Seville had seen flirting with death 
in mid-air. 

" Oh, it was nothing," La Cosa heard Ojeda say 
when Las Casas made some kindly compliment on his 
daring. " I will tell you," he added In a lower voice, 
pulling something small out of his doublet, " I have a 
sure talisman in this little picture of the Virgin. The 
Bishop gave it to me, and I always carry it. In all the 
dangers one naturally must encounter in the service of 



68 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

such a master as mine, it has kept me safe. I have 
never even been wounded." 

The Duke of Medina Coeli was In fact a stern mas- 
ter In the school of arms. He was always at the front 
in the wars just concluded between Spaniard and Moor, 
and where he was, there he expected his squires to be. 
There was no place among the youths whose fathers 
had given him charge of their military training, for a 
lad with a grain of physical cowardice. Ojeda more- 
over had a quick temper and a fiery sense of honor, 
and it really seemed to savor of the miraculous that he 
had escaped all harm. At any rate he had reached the 
age of twenty-one with unabated faith in the little 
Flemish painting. 

" These youngsters — " the veteran seaman said to 
himself as he looked at the straight, proud, keen-faced 
squires and youthful knights marching along the streets 
of the temporary capital, " now that the Moors are 
vanquished what won't they do In the Indies! I think 
the golden days must be come for Christians. And 
shall you be a soldier also, my lad? " he asked of the 
sharp-faced boy, who still stood near him. 

" My father says not. He wants me to be a law- 
yer," said the youngster Indifferently. Then he shpped 
away as some companions of his own age, or a little 
older, came by, and one said enviously, 

"Where have you been, Hernan' Cortes? Lucky 
you were not with us. My faith — " the speaker 
wriggled expressively, " we caught a drubbing! " 

" Told you so," returned the lad addressed, with 
cool unconcern. " Why can't you see when to let go 
the cat's tail? " 

" He has a head on him, that one," the seaman 
chuckled. " There is always one of his sort in every 



THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE 69 

gang of boys. But that young gallant Ojeda ! A 
fine young fellow, and as devoted as he is brave." 
Juan de la Cosa had conceived at first sight an admira- 
tion and affection for Ojeda which was to last as long 
as they both should live. 

The fleet that stately sailed from Cadiz on Sep- 
tember 25, 1493, was a very different sight from the 
three shabby little caravels that slipped down the 
Tinto a year and a half before. The Admiral now 
commanded fourteen caravels and three great car- 
racks or store-ships, on board of which were horses, 
mules, cattle, carefully packed shoots of grape-vines 
and sugar-cane, seeds of all kinds, and provisions ready 
for use. The fleet carried nearly fifteen hundred per- 
sons, — three hundred more than had been arranged 
for, but the enthusiasm in Spain was boundless. It 
carried also the embittered hatred of Fonseca. The 
Bishop, having been the Queen's confessor, naturally 
became head of the Department of the Indies in order 
to forward with all zeal the conversion of the native 
races. But when he tried to assert his authority over 
the Admiral and appealed to Fernando and Ysabel to 
support him, he was told mildly but firmly that in the 
equipment and command of the fleet Colon's judgment 
was best. This royal snub Fonseca never forgave, and 
he was one of those persons who revenge a slight on 
some one else rather than the one who inflicted it. It 
was also his nature never to forgive any one for suc- 
ceeding in an undertaking which he himself had proph- 
esied would fail. 

All seemed in order on the morning of the embarka- 
tion. At this time of year storms were unlikely, and 
there was no severity of climate to be feared. Half 
Castile and Aragon had come to see the expedition 



70 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

off. The young cavaliers' heads were filled with vis- 
ions of rich dukedoms and principalities in the golden 
empire upon whose coast the discovered islands hung, 
like pendants of pearl and gold upon the robe of a 
monarch. 

The first incident of the voyage was not, however, 
romantic. The fleet touched at the Canary Islands to 
take on board more animals — goats, sheep, swine 
and fowls, for the Admiral had seen none of these in 
any of the islands he had visited. In fact the people 
had no domestic animal whatever except their strange 
dumb dogs. The cavaliers, glad of a chance to stretch 
their legs in a space a little greater than the deck of a 
crowded ship, strolled about discussing past and fu- 
ture with large freedom. 

Ojeda was asking Juan de la Cosa about the nature 
of the country. It seemed to him the ideal field for 
a man of spirit and high heart. How glorious a con- 
quest would it be to abolish the vile superstitions of the 
barbarians and set up the altars of the true faith! 

The pilot was a little amused and somewhat doubt- 
ful; he knew something of savages, and Ojeda and the 
priests on board did not. It was not, he suggested, 
always easy to convert stubborn heathen. A pig was 
a small animal, but Ojeda would remember that to the 
Moslem it was as great an object of aversion as a 
lion. 

" Ho ! " said Ojeda superbly, " that is quite — " 
He was interrupted by a blow that knocked his legs 
out from under him and landed him on the ground in 
a sitting position with his hat over his eyes. 

" Who did that? " he cried, leaping to his feet, hand 
on sword. 

" Only a pig, my lord," the sailor answered choking 



THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE 71 

with half-swallowed laughter. It was a pig, which the 
sailors had goaded to such a state of desperation that 
it had bolted straight into the group as a pig will, and 
was now galloping away, pursued by a great variety 
of maledictions and persons. " They have got the 
creature now," he added, "You are not hurt?" for 
Ojeda was actually pale with indignation and disgust. 

"No," sputtered the youth, "but that pig — that 
p-pig — " He looked around him with an eye which 
seemed to challenge any beholder of whatever condi- 
tion, to laugh and be instantly run through. Fortu- 
nately most of those on the wharf had been too much 
occupied to see Ojeda fall before the pig, and just then 
the trumpets blew, and all hastened to get back on 
board ship. 

When an expedition is composed largely of hot- 
headed youths trained to the use of arms, each of whom 
has a code of honor as sensitive as a mimosa plant and 
as prickly as a cactus, the lot of their commanders is 
not happy. It may have been Ojeda's treasured talis- 
man which saved him from several sudden deaths dur- 
ing the following weeks, but Juan de la Cosa privately 
believed it was partly the memory of the pig. The 
young man had what might in another time and civili- 
zation have developed into a sense of humor. It 
would not do for a hero with the world before him to 
get himself sent back to Spain because of some trivial 
personal quarrel. 

On reaching Hispaniola the adventurers found 
plenty of real occupation awaiting them. The little 
colony which the Admiral had left at Navidad on his 
first voyage had been wiped out. The natives timidly 
explained that a fierce chief from the interior, Caonaba, 
had killed or captured all the forty men of the garrison 



J2 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

and destroyed their fort. Colon was obliged to re- 
model all his plans at a moment's notice. Instead of 
finding a colony well under way, and in control of the 
wild tribes or at least friendly with them, he found the 
wreck of a luckless attempt at settlement, and the 
kindly native villagers turned aloof and suspicious, and 
living in dread of a second raid by Caonaba. He 
chose a site for a second settlement on the coast, where 
ships could find a harbor, not far from gold-bearing 
mountains which the natives described and called Cibao. 
This sounded rather like Cipangu. 

Ojeda led an exploring party into the mountains, and 
found gold nuggets in the beds of the streams. In 
March a substantial little town had been built, with a 
church, granary, market-square, and a stone wall 
around the whole. The Admiral then organized an 
expedition to explore the interior. 

On March 12, 1494, Colon with his chief officers 
went out of the gate of the settlement, which had been 
named for the Queen, at the head of four hundred 
men, many of whom were mounted, and all armed with 
sword, cross-bow, lance or arquebus. With casques 
and breastplates shining in the sun, banners flying, 
pennons fluttering, drums and trumpets sounding, they 
presented a sight which should have brought ambas- 
sadors from any monarch of the Indies who heard of 
their approach. But although a multitude of savages 
came from the forest to see, no signs of any such cap- 
ital as that of the Great Khan appeared. At the end 
of the first day's march they camped at the foot of a 
rocky mountain range with no way over it but a foot- 
path, winding over rocks and through dense tropical 
jungles. There appeared to be no roads in the coun- 
try. 



THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE ^z 

But this was not an impossible situation to the young 
Spanish cavaliers, for in the Moorish wars it had often 
been necessary to construct a road over the mountains. 
A number of them at once volunteered for the service, 
and with laborers and pioneers, to whom they set an 
example by working as valiantly as they were ready to 
fight, they made a road for the little army, which was 
named in their honor El Puerto de los Hidalgos, the 
Gentlemen's Pass. When they reached the top of 
this steep defile and could look down upon the land 
beyond they saw a vast and magnificent plain, covered 
with forests of beautiful trees, blossoming meadows 
and a network of clear lakes and rivers, and dotted 
here and there with thatch-roofed villages. Near the 
top of the pass a spring of cool delicious water bubbled 
out in a glen shaded by palms and one tall and hand- 
some tree of an unknown variety, with wood so hard 
that it turned the ax of a laborer who tried to cut a 
chip of it. Colon gave the plain the name of the 
Vega Real or Royal Plain. 

Of all the events, exploits and intrigues of those 
first years in the Spanish Indies, no one historian among 
those who accompanied the expedition ever found time 
to write. Where all was so new, and every man, 
whether priest, cavalier, soldier, sailor, clerk or arti- 
san, had his own reasons and his own aims in coming 
to this land of promise, nothing went exactly accord- 
ing to anybody's plans. The Admiral was soon con- 
vinced that in Hispaniola at least no civilized capital 
existed. To their amazement and amusement the 
Spaniards found that the savages feared their horses 
more than their weapons. It was discovered after 
a while that horse and rider were at first supposed to 
be one supernatural animal. When the white men 



74 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

dismounted the people fled In horror, believing that 
the ferocious beasts were going to eat them. 

It became evident that with the fierce chief Caonaba 
to reckon with, military strength and capacity would 
be the only means of holding the country. The com- 
mander could not count on patriotism, religious prin- 
ciple or even self-interest to keep the colonists united. 
In this tangled situation one of the few persons who 
really enjoyed himself was Alonso dc Ojeda. Instead 
of spending his time in drinking, quarreling or getting 
himself into trouble with friendly natives, the young 
man seemed bent on proving himself an able and 
sagacious leader of men. A little fortress of logs had 
been built about eighteen leagues from the settlement, 
in the mining country, defended on all sides but one by 
a little river, the Yanique, and on the remaining side 
by a deep ditch. Gold dust, nuggets, amber, jasper 
and lapis lazuli had been found in the neighborhood, 
and it was the Admiral's Intention to send miners there 
as soon as possible, protected by the fort, which he 
called San Tomas. Ojeda happened to be in command 
of the garrison, in the absence of his superior, when 
Caonaba came down from his mountains with an im- 
mense force of hostile tribes. The young lieutenant 
In his rude eyrie, perched on a hill surrounded by the 
enemy, held off ten thousand savages under the Carib 
chief for more than a month. Finally the chief, whose 
people had never been trained in warfare after the 
European fashion, found them deserting by hundreds, 
tired of the monotony of the siege. Ojeda did not 
merely stand on the defensive. He was continually 
sallying forth at the head of small but determined com- 
panies of Spaniards, whenever the enemy came near 
his stronghold. He never went far enough from his 



THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE 75 

base to be captured, but killed off so many of the best 
warriors of Caonaba that the chief himself grew tired 
of the unprofitable undertaking and withdrew his army. 
During the siege provisions ran short, and when things 
were looking very dark a friendly savage slipped in 
one night with two pigeons for the table of the com- 
mander. When they were brought to Ojeda, in the 
council chamber where he was seated consulting with 
his officers, he glanced at the famine-pinched faces 
about him, took the pigeons in his hands and stroked 
their feathers for an instant. 

" It is a pity," he said, " that we have not enough 
to make a meal. I am not going to feast while the 
rest of you starve," and he gave the birds a toss into 
the air from the open window and turned again to his 
plans. When some one reported the incident to the 
Admiral his eyes shone. 

" I wish we had a few more such commanders," he 
said. 

Caonaba's next move was to form a conspiracy 
among all the caciques of Hispaniola, to join in a grand 
attack against the white men and wipe them out, as he 
had wiped out the little garrison at Navidad. A 
friendly cacique, Guacanagari, who had been the ally 
of the Admiral from the first, gave him information 
of this plot, and the danger was seen by Colon's acute 
mind to be desperate indeed. He had only a small 
force, torn by jealousy and private quarrels, and a de- 
fensive fight at this stage of his enterprise would al- 
most surely be a losing one. The territory of Caonaba 
included the most mountainous and inaccessible part 
of the island, where that wily barbarian could hold out 
for years; and as long as he was loose there would be 
no safety for white men. To the Admiral, who was 



76 THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE 

just recovering from a severe illness, the prospect 
looked very gloomy. 

Pedro the Vizcayan cabin-boy, who was his con- 
fidential servant, was crossing the plaza one day with 
a basket of fruit, when Alonso de Ojeda stopped him 
to inquire after his master's health. 

" His health," said Pedro, " would improve if I had 
Caonaba's head in this basket. I wish somebody 
would get it." 

Ojeda laughed, showing a flash of white teeth under 
his jaunty mustachios. Then he grew thoughtful. 
" Wait a moment, Pedro," he said. " Will you ask 
the Admiral if he can see me for a few minutes, this 
morning? " 

When Ojeda appeared Colon detected a trace of 
excitement in the young man's bearing, and tactfully 
led the conversation to Caonaba. He frankly ex- 
pressed his perplexity. 

" Have you a plan, Ojeda? " he asked with a half 
smile. " It has been my experience, that you usually 
have." 

Ojeda felt a thrill of pleasure, for the Admiral did 
not scatter his compliments broadcast. He admitted 
that he had a plan. 

" Let me hear it," said Colon. 

But as the youthful captain unfolded his scheme the 
cool gray eye of the Genoese commander betrayed dis- 
tinct surprise. It seemed only yesterday that this 
youngster had been a little monkey of a page in the 
great palace of the Duke of Medina Coeli, when he 
was entertained there, on arriving in Spain. 

" You see," Ojeda concluded, " I have observed in 
fighting these people that if their leader is killed or 
captured, they seem to lose their heads completely. I 



THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE "jy 

think that with a dozen men I can get Caonaba and 
bring him in. If I do not — the loss will not be very 
great." 

" I should not like to lose you," said the Admiral, 
with his hand on the young man's shoulder. " Go, if 
you will, — but do not sacrifice your own life if you 
can help it." 

Ojeda had faith in his talisman, and he also believed 
that if any man .could go into Caonaba's territory and 
come back alive, he was that man. He knew that he 
himself, in the place of the chief, would respect a man 
whom he had not been able to beat. 

With ten soldiers he rode up into the mountains, his 
blood leaping with the wild joy of an adventure as 
great as any in the Song of the Cid. To be sure, 
Caonaba would not in his mountain camp have any 
such army as when he surrounded the fort, for then 
he commanded whole tribes of allies. In case of com- 
ing to blows Ojeda believed that he and his men with 
their superior weapons could cut their way out. Still, 
the odds were beyond anything that he had ever heard 
of. 

He found the Carib chief, and began by trying 
diplomacy. He said that his master, the Guamaquima 
or chief of the Spaniards, had sent him with a present. 
Would he not consent to make a visit to the colony, 
with a view of becoming the Admiral's ally and friend? 
If he would, he should be presented with the bell of 
the chapel, the voice of the church, the wonder of 
Hispaniola. 

Caonaba had heard that bell when he was prowling 
about the settlement, and the temptation to become its 
owner was great. He finally agreed to accompany 
Ojeda and his handful of Spaniards back to the coast. 



78 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

But when they were ready to start, the force of war- 
riors In Caonaba's escort was out of all proportion to 
any peaceful embassy. Ojeda turned to his original 
plan. 

He proposed that Caonaba, after bathing in the 
stream at the foot of the mountain, and attiring him- 
self in his finest robe, should put on the gift the Span- 
ish captain had brought, a pair of metal bracelets, and 
return to his followers mounted with Ojeda on his 
horse. The chief's eyes glittered as he saw the pol- 
ished steel of the ornaments Ojeda produced. He 
knew that nothing could so impress his wild followers 
with his power and greatness as his ability to conquer 
all fear of the terrible animals always seen in the van- 
guard of the white men's army. He consented to the 
plan, and after putting on his state costume, and being 
decorated with the handcuffs, he cautiously mounted 
behind the young commander, and his followers, in 
awe and admiration, beheld their cacique ride. 

Ojeda, who was a perfect horseman, made the horse 
leap, curvet and caracole, taking a wider circuit each 
time, until making a long sweep through the forest the 
two disappeared from the view of the Carib army alto- 
gether. Ojeda's own men closed in upon him, bound 
Caonaba hand and foot, behind their leader, and thus 
the chief was taken into the Spanish settlement. The 
conspiracy fell to pieces and the colony was saved. 

Caonaba showed no respect to Colon or any one else 
in the camp while a prisoner there, except Ojeda. 
When Ojeda entered he promptly rose to his feet. 
They had many conversations together, and Caonaba, 
who evidently rather admired the stratagem by which 
he had been captured, agreed with his captor that 
Ojeda was The Man Who Could Not Die. 




"HE PROPOSED THAT CAONABA SHOULD PUT ON THE GIFT 
THE SPANISH CAPTAIN HAD BROUGHT." 

—Page 78 



THE MAN WHO COULD NOT DIE 79 



NOTE 

The career of Alonso de Ojeda is one of the most picturesque and 
adventurous in early Spanish-American history, and his character is 
typical of the young Spanish cavalier of the age just following the 
discovery of America. The episodes here used, with many others 
quite as dramatic, are described at length in Irving's " Life of 
Columbus." 



THE ESCAPE 

Why do you come here, white men, white men? 

Why do you bend the knee 
When your priests before you, singing, singing, 

Lift the cross, the cross of tree? 

Flashing in the sunlight, rainbows waking, 

Move your mighty oars keeping time. 
Sailors heave your anchors, chanting, chanting 

Some strange and mystic rime. 

Pearls and gold we bring you, feathers of our wild birds. 

Glowing in the sunshine like flowers. 
Houses we will build you, food and clothing find you, 

You shall share in all that is ours. 

Why do you frighten us, white men, white men? 

Can you not be friends for a day? 
Souls are like the sea-birds, flying, flying, 

Borne by the sea-wind away. 

Why do you chain us in the mines of the mountains? 

Why do you hunt us with your hounds? 
We who were so free, are we evermore to be 

Prisoned in your narrow hateful bounds? 

One escape is left us, white men, white men, — 

You cannot forbid our souls to fly 
To the stars of freedom, far beyond the sunset, — 

We whom you have captured can die! 



80 



VI 

LOCKED HARBORS 

BUT of what use is a King's patent," said Hugh 
Thorne of Bristol, " if the harbors be locked? " 

The Italian merchant glanced up from his papers 
and smiled, which was all the answer the Englishman 
seemed to expect, for he stormed on, " Here have we 
better fleeces than Spain, better wheat than France, 
finer cattle than the Netherlands, the tin of Cornwall, 
the flax of Kent and Durham, and our people starve or 
live rudely because of the fettering of our trade." 

" 'T is a sad misfortune," said the merchant. " In 
a world so great as this there is surely room for all to 
work and all to get reward for their labor. But so 
long as the English merchant guilds wear away their 
time and substance in fighting one another I fear 't will 
be no better." 

Thorne flung his cloak about him with an impatient 
gesture. " That's true," he answered, " the Spaniards 
hold by Spain, and all the Hanse merchants by one 
another, but our English go every man for himself 
and the devil take the hindmost. I speak freely to 
you, friend, because you have cast in your lot with us 
West Country folk and are content to be called John 
Cabot." 

The other smiled again, his quick childlike smile, 
and went with his guest to the door. When he en- 
tered again his small private room a dark-eyed boy of 
five was crawling out from under the table. 

Si 



82 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

" Dad," he inquired solemnly, " vat is a locked har- 
bor?" 

John Cabot laughed and swung his little son to his 
shoulder. " That is a great question for a little 
brain," he said fondly. " But see thee here; suppose 
I put thee in the chest and shut the lid and turn the 
key; thou art locked in and canst not get out — so! 
But now I put thee out of door and set the bandog to 
guard it; thou art locked out though the door be wide 
open, seest thou? And when I forbid thee to pick up 
the plums that fall on the grass from the Frenchman's 
damson tree, they are as safe as if I locked them in the 
dresser here, are they not? So 't is when the King 
forbids his people to send their goods to some harbor; 
it is the same as if a great chain were stretched across 
that harbor with a great lock upon it. Now run and 
play with Ludovico and Santo, Sebastiano mio, and I 
be glad thou art free of a pleasant garden." ' 

But Sebastian still hung back, his dark head rubbing 
softly against his father's shoulder. " When I am a 
great merchant," he announced, " the King will let me 
send my ships all over the world." 

John Cabot stroked the wavy dark hair with a 
lingering, tender touch. " God grant thee thy wish, 
little one," he said. And Sebastian, with a shout in 
answer to a call from the sunny out-of-door world, 
scampered away. 

John Cabot, who had been born in Genoa, married 
while a merchant in Venice, and had now lived for 
many years in Bristol, felt sometimes that the life of a 
trader was like that of a player at dice. And the dice 
were often loaded. 

He was a good navigator, or he would not have been 
a true son of the Genoese house of Caboto — Giovanni 



LOCKED HARBORS 83 

Caboto translated meant John the Captain, and in a city 
full of sea-captains a man must know more than a 
little of the sea to win that title. He had made a 
place for himself in Venice as Zuan Gaboto, and now 
he was a known and respected man in the second great- 
est seaport of England, with a house in the quarter of 
Bristol known as " Cathay," the only part of the city 
where foreigners were allowed to live. It had its 
nickname from the fact that the foreign trade of 
Bristol was largely with the Orient. 

English trade in those days was hampered by a 
multitude of restrictions. There were monopolies, 
there were laws forbidding the export of this and that, 
or the making of goods by any one outside certain 
guilds, there were arrangements favoring foreign trad- 
ers who had got their foothold during the War of the 
Roses, — when kings needed money from any source 
that would promise it. The Hanse merchants at the 
Steelyard alone controlled the markets of more than a 
hundred towns. Their grim stone buildings rose like 
a fort commanding London Bridge, and they paid less 
both in duties and customs than English merchants 
did. They employed no English ships, and could un- 
derbuy and undersell the English manufacturer and 
the English trader. Their men were all bachelors, 
with no families to found or houses to keep up in 
England. The farmer might get half price for his 
wool and pay more than one price for whatever he was 
obliged to buy. There was plenty of private exaspera- 
tion, but no open fighting, against this ruling of the 
London markets by Hamburg, Liibeck, Antwerp and 
Cologne. Cabot's clear head and wide experience 
plainly showed him the enormous waste of such a sys- 
tem, but he did not see how to unlock the harbors. 



84 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Neither, at present, did the King, whose shrewd brain 
was at work on the problem. 

Henry Tudor had the thrift of a youth spent in pov- 
erty, and the turn for finance inherited from Welsh 
ancestors, but his kingdom was not rich, and his throne 
not over-secure. He was prejudiced against doing 
anything rash, both by nature and by the very limited 
income of the crown. He had given an audience to 
Bartholomew Columbus while the older brother was 
still haunting the court of Castile with his unfulfilled 
plans, and had gone so far as to tell the Genoese cap- 
tain to bring his brother Christopher to England that 
he might talk with him. Had it not been for Queen 
Isabella's impulsive decision England instead of Spain 
might have made the lucky throw in the great game of 
discovery. But by the time Bartholomew could get 
the message to his brother the matter had been settled 
and the expedition was already taking shape, Henry 
VII. always kept one foot on the ground, and until he 
could see some other way to bring wealth into the royal 
treasury he let the monopolies go on. 

In 1495 he took a chance. He gave to John Cabot 
and his sons a license to search " for islands, provinces 
or regions in the eastern, western or northern seas; 
and, as vassals of the King, to occupy the territories 
that might be found, with an exclusive right to their 
commerce, on paying the King a fifth part of the 
profits." 

It will be noted that this license did not say anything 
about the southern ocean. Already troops of Spanish 
cavaliers were pouring into the seaports, eager to 
make discoveries by the road of Columbus, and Spain 
would regard as unfriendly any attempt to send En- 
glish ships in that direction. Whatever could be got 



LOCKED HARBORS 85 

from the Spanish territories Henry would try an- 
other way of getting. The year before he had ar- 
ranged to have Prince Arthur, the heir to his throne, 
marry the fourth daughter of the King of Aragon, 
Catherine, then a little Princess of eleven. Prince 
Arthur died while still a boy, and Catherine, became 
the first wife of Henry, afterward Henry VIII. 
With a Spanish Princess as queen of England, there 
might be an alliance between the two countries. That 
would be better than quarreling with Spain over dis- 
coveries which were at best uncertain. If Cabot re- 
ally found anything valauble in the northern seas the 
move might turn out to be a good one. It would make 
England a more powerful member of the Spanish al- 
liance, without taking anything which Spain appeared 
to value. 

In May, 1497, properly furnished with provisions 
and a hw such things as might show what England 
had to barter, the little Matthew sailed from Bristol 
under the command of John Cabot with his nineteen- 
year-old son Sebastian and a crew of eighteen — 
nearly all Englishmen, used to the North Atlantic. 
The King's permission was for five ships, but the wise 
Cabot had heard something of the hardships of the 
first expeditions to Hispaniola, and preferred to keep 
within his means, and sail with men whom he could 
trust. 

But on this voyage they found locked harbors not 
closed by the order of any King but by natural causes, 
— harbors without inhabitants or means of support- 
ing life, and so far north as to be blocked by ice for 
half the year. They sailed seven hundred leagues 
west and came at last to a rocky wooded coast. Now 
in all the books of travel in Asia, mention had been 
made of an immense territory ruled by the Grand 



86 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Cham of Tartary, whose hordes had nearly overrun 
Eastern Europe in times not so very long ago. The 
adventures of Marco Polo the Venetian, in a great 
book sent to Cabot by his wife's father, had been the 
fairy-tale of Sebastian and his brothers from the time 
they were old enough to understand a story. In this 
book it was written how Marco Polo and his compan- 
ions passed through utterly uninhabited wilds in the 
Great Khan's empire, and afterward came to a region 
of barbarians, who robbed and killed travelers. These 
fierce people lived on the fruits and game of the forest, 
cultivating no fields; they dressed in the skins of wild 
animals and used salt for money. Could this be the 
place? If so it behooved the little party of explorers 
to be careful. As yet, nobody dreamed that any main- 
land discovered by sailing westward from northern 
Europe could be anything but Asia. 

Cautiously they sailed along the rugged shore, but 
not a human being was to be seen. It was the twenty- 
fourth of June, when by all accounts the people of any 
civihzed country should be coasting along from port 
to port fishing or engaged in traffic. The sun blazed 
hot and clear, but the inquisitive noses of the crew 
scented no cinnamon, cloves or ginger in the air. All 
of these, according to Marco Polo, were in the wilder- 
ness he crossed, and also great rivers. On crossing 
one of these rivers he had found himself in a populous 
country with castles and cities. Were there no peo- 
ple on this desolate shore — or were they lying in wait 
for the voyagers to land, that they might seize and kill 
them and plunder the ship? 

One thing was certain, the air of this strange place 
made them all more thirsty than they ever had been in 
England, and their water-supply had given out. 




"A SAPLING, BENT DOWN, WAS ATTACHED TO A NOOSE 
INGENIOUSLY HIDDEN." 

—Page 87 



LOCKED HARBORS 87 

Sebastian and a crew of the younger men tumbled into 
a boat, cross-bow and cutlass at hand, and went ashore 
to fill the barrels, while John Cabot kept an anxious 
eye on the land. Sebastian himself rather relished 
the adventure. 

They found a stream of delicious water, — pure, 
cold and clear as a fountain of Eden. Among the 
rocks they found creeping vines with rather tasteless, 
bright red berries, in the woods little evergreen herbs 
with leaves like laurel and scarlet spicy berries, dark 
green mossy vines with white berries — but no spice- 
trees. The forest in fact was rather like Norway, 
according to Ralph Erlandsson, who was a native of 
Stavanger. Sebastian, who was ahead, presently came 
upon signs of human life. A sapling, bent down and 
held by a rude contrivance of deerhide thong and 
stakes, was attached to a noose so ingeniously hidden 
that the young leader nearly stepped into it. He took 
it off the tree and looked about him. A minute later, 
from one side and to the rear, a startled exclamation 
came from Robert Thorne of Bristol, who had stepped 
on a similar snare and been jerked off his feet. This 
was quite enough. The party retreated to the ship. 
On the way back they saw trees that had been cut not 
very long since, and Sebastian picked up a wooden 
needle such as fishermen used in making nets, yet not 
like any English tool of that sort. 

They saw nothing more of the kind, although they 
sailed some three hundred leagues along the coast, nor 
did they see any sort of tilled land. This certainly 
could not be Cipangu or Cathay with their seaports and 
gilded temples. Whatever else it was, it was a land 
of wild people, savage hunters. John Cabot left on a 
bold headland where it could not fail to be seen, a 



88 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

great cross, with the flag of England and the Venetian 
banner bearing the lion of Saint Mark. 

There was wild excitement in Bristol when it was 
known that the little Matthew had come safely into 
port, after three months' voyaging in unknown seas. 
August of that year found the two Cabots at West- 
minster with their story and their handful of forest 
trophies, and the excited and suspicious Spanish Am- 
bassador was framing a protest to the King and a let- 
ter to Ferdinand and Isabella. 

Henry VII. fingered the wooden needle, pulled the 
rawhide thong meditatively through his fingers, and 
ate a little handful of the wintergreen berries and 
young leaves. Their pungent flavor wrinkled his long 
nose. This was certainly not any spice that came from 
the Indies. 

" This country you found," he remarked at last, 
" is not much like New Spain." 

" Nay, Sire," answered John Cabot simply. 

" And I understand," — the King put the collection 
of curiosities back into the wallet that had held them, 
" that this represents one fifth at least of the gains of 
the voyage." 

Cabot bowed. As a matter of fact there had been 
no profits. 

" My lord," — the King handed the wallet over to 
the uneasy Ambassador, who had been invited to the 
conference, " you have heard what our good Captain 
says. If, as you say, Spain claims this landfall, we 
wilHngly make over to you our — ahem! — share of 
the emolument." And the Spaniard, looking rather 
foolish, saw nothing better to do than to bow his thanks 
and retire from the presence. 

The King turned again to the Cabots. 



LOCKED HARBORS 89 

"Nevertheless," he went on meditatively, " we will 
not be neglectful of you. In another year, if it is still 
your desire to engage in this work, you may have — " 
a pause — " ten ships armed as you see fit, and manned 
with whatever prisoners are not confined for — high 
treason. Fish, I think you said, abound in those 
waters? Bacalao — er — that is cod, is it not? 
Now it seems to me that our men of Bristol can go 
a-fishing on those banks without interference from the 
Hanse merchants, and we shall be less dependent on 
— foreign aid, for the victualing of our tables. And 
there may be some way to Asia through these North- 
ern seas — in which case our brother of Spain may 
not be so nice in his scruples about trespass. The 
Spice Islands are not his but Portugal's. And for 
your present reward, — " the King reached for his lean 
purse and waggled his gaunt foot in its loose worn red 
shoe " this, and the title of Admiral of your new-found 
land." 

He dropped some gold pieces into the hand of John 
Cabot. In the accounts of his treasurer for that year 
may be seen this item: 

" loth August, donation of £10 to him that found 
the new isle." 

In May of the next year another voyage was under- 
taken by Sebastian, John Cabot having died. This 
time there was a small fleet from Bristol with some 
three hundred men. Sebastian sailed so far north as 
to be stopped by seas full of icebergs, then turning 
southward discovered the island of Newfoundland, 
landed further south on the mainland, and went as far 
toward the Spanish possessions as the great bay called 
Chesapeake. Meanwhile shoals of little fishing boats, 
from Bristol, Brittany, Lisbon, Rye, and the Vizcayan 



90 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

ports on the north of Spain, crept across the gray seas 
to fish for cod. They held no patent and carried no 
guns, but they made a floating city off the Grand 
Banks for a brief season, settling their own disputes. 
The people at home found salt fish good cheap and 
wholesome. When Sebastian told the Bristol folk that 
the fish were so thick In these new seas that he could 
hardly get his ships through, they would not believe it. 
But when Robert Thorne and a dozen others had seen 
the little caplln, the fish which the cod feeds upon, 
swimming inshore by the acre, crowded by the cod 
behind them, and by seal, shark and dogfish hunting the 
cod, when cod were caught and salted down and shown 
in Bristol, four and five feet long, then Bristol swal- 
lowed both story and cargo and blessed the name of 
Cabot. 

Sebastian Cabot shook the dust of Bristol off his 
restless feet more than once In the years that followed. 
Within five years after his voyage to the Arctic regions 
he was cruising about the Caribbean. In 15 17 he was 
at the entrance of the great bay on the north coast of 
Labrador. In 1524 he was in the service of Spain, 
and coasting along the eastern shores of South America 
ascended the great river which De Soils had named 
Rio de la Plata, came within sight of the mountains of 
Peru. But for orders from Spain, where Pizarro had 
secured the governorship of that land, Cabot might 
have been Its conqueror. In 1548, after some years 
spent in Spain as pilot major, he came back to England, 
where he was appointed to the position of superintend- 
ent of naval affairs. It was his work to examine and 
license pilots, and make charts and maps, and some ten 
years later he died, having founded the company of 
Merchant Adventurers in 1553. This company was 



LOCKED HARBORS 91 

entitled to build and send out ships for discovery and 
trade in parts unknown. By uniting merchant traders 
in one body, governed by definite rules, and backed by 
their combined capital, it broke the monopoly of the 
Hanseatic League and finally drove the Hanse mer- 
chants out of England. Sebastian Cabot was its first 
governor, holding the office until he died, and has 
rightly been called the father of free trade. He had 
unlocked the harbors of the world to his adopted coun- 
try, England. 

NOTE 

The rules drawn up by Cabot for the merchant adventurers, to be 
read publicly on board ship once a week, are interesting as showing 
the character of the man and the great advance made in welding 
English trade into a company to be guided by the best traditions. 
For the first time captains were required to keep a log, and this one 
thing, by putting on record everything seen and noted by those who 
sailed strange waters, made an increasing fund of knowledge at the 
service of each navigator. Some of the points in the instructions are 
as follows: 

7. " That the merchants and other skilful persons, in writing, shall 
daily write, describe and put in memorie the navigation of each day 
and night, with the points and observations of the lands, tides, ele- 
ments, altitude of the sunne, course of the moon and starres, and the 
same so noted by the order of the master and pilot of every ship to 
be put in writing; the captain-general assembling the masters together 
once every weeke (if winde and weather shall serve) to conferre all 
the observations and notes of the said ships, to the intent it may ap- 
peare wherein the notes do agree and wherein they dissent, and upon 
good debatement, deliberation and conclusion determined to put the 
same into a common ledger, to remain of record for the companie; 
the like order to be kept in proportioning of the cardes, astrolabes, and 
other instruments prepared for the voyage, at the charge of the 
companie. 

12. " That no blaspheming of God, or detestable swearing, be used 
in any ship, or communication of ribaldrie, filthy tales, or ungodly 
talk to be suflFered in the company of any ship, neither dicing, tabling, 
nor other divelish games to be permitted, whereby ensueth not only 
povertie to the players, but also strife, variance, brauling, fighting and 
oftentimes murther. 

26. " Every nation and region to be considered advisedly, and 
not to provoke them by any distance, laughing, contempt, or such like; 



92 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

but to use them with prudent circumspection, with all gentleness and 
courtesie." 

These and other instructions form an ideal far beyond anything 
found in the merchant shipping of any other land at that time, and 
the wisdom which inspired them undoubtedly laid the foundation of 
the fine and noble tradition which formed the best officers of the navy 
not yet born. There was no British navy in the modern sense until 
a hundred years after Cabot's day. In time of war the King im- 
pressed all suitable ships into his service, if they were not freely 
offered by private owners. In time of peace the monarch was a 
ship-owner like any other, and such a thing as a standing navy was 
not thought of. Hence the brave, generous, and courteous merchant 
adventurer, when such a man was abroad, was the upholder of the 
honor of his country as well as the upbuilder of her commerce. 



GRAY SAILS 

Gray sails that fill with the winds of the morning, 
Out upon the Channel or the bleak North sea, 

Neither cross nor fleur-de-lis goes to your adorning, — 
Arctic frost and southern gale your tirewomen shall be. 

Yet when you come home again — home again — home again, 
Gray sails turn to silver when the keel runs free. 

Gray sails of Plymouth, 'ware the wild Orcades, 
Gray sails of Lisbon, 'ware the guns of Dieppe. 

Cross-bows of Genoa, 'ware the wharves of Gades, — 

You that sail the Spanish Seas may neither trust nor sleep. 

Yet when you come home again — home again — home again, 
You shall make the covenant for Kings to keep! 

Gray sails are crowding where the sea-fog sleeping 

Masks the faces of the folk that throng and traffic there. 

When the winds are free again and the cod are leaping, 
All the tongues of Pentecost wake the laughing air. 

And when they come home again — home again — home again, 
They shall bring their freedom for the world to share! 



93 



VII 

LITTLE VENICE 

TRANSLATORS," observed Amerigo Vespucci, 
" are frequently traitors. Now who is to be 
surety that yonder interpreter does not change your 
words in repeating them? " 

Alonso de Ojeda touched the hilt of his poniard. 
" This," he said. " Toledo steel speaks all lan- 
guages." 

The Florentine's black eyebrows lifted a little, but 
he did not pursue the subject. Ojeda was not the sort 
of man likely to be convinced of anything he did not 
believe already, and Vespucci was having too good a 
time to waste it in argument. 

This middle-aged, shrewd-looking individual had 
for half his life been chained to the desk, for he had 
been many years a clerk in the great merchant houses 
of the Medici. Until he was forty years old he had 
hardly gone outside his native city. In the latter half 
of the fifteenth century each Italian city was a little 
world in itself, with its own standards, customs and 
traditions. The fact that Vespucci spent most of his 
leisure and all of his spare ducats in the collection and 
study of maps and globes and works on geography, 
was regarded as a proof of mild insanity. When he 
paid one hundred and thirty gold pieces for a par- 
ticularly fine map made by Valsequa in 1439, ^ven his 
intimate friend Soderini called him a fool. Vespucci 

94 



LITTLE VENICE 95 

was himself an expert mapmaker. This may have 
been a reason why, about 1490, the Medici sent him to 
Barcelona to look after their interests in Spain. In 
Seville he secured a position as manager in the house 
of Juanoto Berardi, who fitted out ships for Atlantic 
voyages. In 1497 he himself sailed for the newly dis- 
covered islands of the West, and spent more than a 
year in exploration. This taste of travel seemed to 
have whetted his appetite for more, for he was now 
acting as astronomer and geographer in the expedition 
which Ojeda had organized and Juan de la Cosa fitted 
out, to the coast which Colon had discovered and called 
Tierre Firme. In the seven years since the first voy- 
age of the great Admiral it had become the custom to 
have on board, for expeditions of discovery, a person 
who understood astronomy, the use of the astrolabe 
and navigation in general, and the making of charts 
and maps. Vespucci was exactly that sort of man. 
However queer it might seem to the young Ojeda to 
find in a clerk forty years old such a fresh and youthful 
delight in travel, both he and La Cosa knew that they 
had in him a valuable assistant. It was generally un- 
derstood that he meant to write a book about it all. 

Vespucci was in fact thinking of his future book 
when he made that speech about translators. He was 
planning to write the book not in Latin, as was usual, 
but in Italian, making if necessary another copy in 
Latin. 

The party had sailed from Puerto Santa Maria on 
May 20, 1499, taking with them a chart which Bishop 
Fonseca, head of the Department of the Indies, fur- 
nished. It had been the understanding when Colon 
received the title of Admiral of the Indies that no ex- 
pedition should be sent out without his authority. 



96 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

This understanding Fonseca succeeded in persuading 
the King and Queen to take back, and another order 
was issued, to the effect that no independent expedition 
was to go out without the royal permission. This, 
practically, meant Fonseca's leave. The Bishop signed 
the permit for Ojeda's undertaking with double satis- 
faction. He was doing a favor for his friend, Bishop 
Ojeda, cousin to this young man, and he was aiming 
a blow at the hated Genoese Admiral, whose very chart 
he was turning over to the young explorer. All sorts 
of stories had been set afloat about the unfitness of the 
Admiral to hold such an important office. Fonseca 
had managed to influence the Queen so far against him 
that one Bobadilla had been sent to Hispaniola with 
power to depose Colon and treat him as a criminal, — 
so cunningly were his instructions framed. When the 
great discoverer was actually thrown into prison and 
sent to Spain manacled like a felon, it might have added 
a few drops of bitterness to his reflections if he had 
known what Ojeda was doing. This youth, whom he 
had trusted and liked, was now looking forward to the 
conquest of the very region which the Admiral had dis- 
covered, and using what was supposed to be the Ad- 
miral's private chart to guide him. 

It is not likely, however, that the fiery and impatient 
Ojeda- gave any thought to the feelings of the older 
man. Juan de la Cosa was a leader in the expedition, 
many sailors were enhsted, who had served in former 
voyages of discovery, and above all, Fonseca approved. 
Ojeda would never have dreamed of setting up any 
personal opinion contrary to the views of the Church. 

In twenty-four days the fleet arrived upon a coast 
which no one on board had ever seen. It was in fact 
two hundred leagues further to the south than Paria, 



LITTLE VENICE 97 

where the Admiral had touched. The people were 
taller and more vigorous than the Arawaks of His- 
paniola, and expert with the bow, the lance and the 
shield. Their bell-shaped houses were of tree-trunks 
thatched with palm leaves, some of them very large. 
The people wore ornaments made of fish-bones, and 
strings of white and green beads, and feather head- 
dresses of the most gorgeous colors. The interpreter 
told Ojeda that the Spaniards' desire of gold and pearls 
was very puzzling to these simple folk, who had never 
considered them of any especial value. In a harbor 
called Maracapana the fleet was unloaded and careened 
for cleaning. Under the direction of Ojeda and La 
Cosa a small brigantine was built. The people 
brought venison, fish, cassava bread and other pro- 
visions willingly, and seemed to think the Spaniards 
angels. At least, that was the version of their talk 
which reached Ojeda. It was here that Amerigo Ves- 
pucci made that remark about translators. He had 
not studied accounts of Atlantic voyages for the last 
few years without drawing a few conclusions regard- 
ing the nature of savages. When it was explained 
that the natives had neighbors who were cannibals, 
and that they would greatly value the strangers' as- 
sistance in fighting them, Vespucci came very near mak- 
ing a suggestion. He finally made it to Juan de la 
Cosa instead of to Ojeda. The old pilot chuckled 
wisely. 

" I've got past warning my young gentleman of dan- 
ger ahead," he said good-naturedly. " He can do 
without fighting just as well as a fish can do without 
water. If I die trying to get him out of some scrape 
he has plunged into head-first, it will be no more than 
I expect." 



98 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Ojeda was, In fact, spoiling for adventure, and joy- 
fully set sail in the direction of the Carib Islands. 
Seven coast natives were on board as guides, and 
pointed out the island Inhabited by their especial en- 
emies. The shore was lined with fierce-faced savages, 
painted and feathered, armed with bows and arrows, 
lances and darts and bucklers. Ojeda launched his 
boats, In each of which was a paterero, or small can- 
non, with a number of soldiers crouching down out of 
sight. The armor of the Spaniards protected them 
from the Indian arrows, while the cotton armor of the 
savages and their light shields were no defense against 
cannon-balls or crossbow-bolts. 

When the barbarians leaped Into the sea and at- 
tacked the boats the cannon scattered them, but they 
rallied and fought more fiercely on land. The Span- 
iards won that day's battle, but the dauntless Islanders 
were ready to renew the fight next morning. With his 
fifty-seven men Ojeda routed the whole fighting force 
of the tribe, made many prisoners, plundered and set 
fire to the villages, and returned to his ships. A part 
of the spoil was bestowed on the seven friendly natives. 
Ojeda, who had not received so much as a scratch, 
anchored in a bay for three weeks to let his wounded 
recover. There were twenty-one wounded and one 
Spaniard had been killed. 

Sailing westward along the coast the fleet presently 
entered a vast gulf like an inland sea, on the eastern 
side of which was a most curious village. Ojeda 
could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes. 
Twenty large cone-shaped houses were built on piles 
driven into the bottom of the lake, which In that part 
was clear and shallow. Each house had its draw- 
bridge, and communicated with Its neighbors and with 



LITTLE VENICE 99 

the shore by means of canoes gliding along the water- 
ways between the piles. The interpreters said it was 
called Coquibacoa. 

" That is no proper name for so marvelous a place," 
said Ojeda after he had tried to pronounce the clucking 
many-syllabled word. " Is it like anything you have 
seen, Vespucci? " 

The Italian had been comparing it with a similar 
village he had seen on his first voyage, on a part of 
the coast called Lariab. He had an instinct, however, 
that it would not be well to mix his own discoveries 
with those of the present expedition. 

" It Is rather like Venice," he said demurely. 

"That is the name for it," cried Ojeda in high de- 
light, — " Venezuela — Little Venice ! " 

" It would be interesting," observed Vespucci, " to 
know what names they are giving to us. How they 
stare! " 

The people of the village on stilts were evidently as 
much astonished at the strangers as the strangers were 
at them. They fled into their houses and raised the 
draw-bridges. The men in a squadron of canoes 
which came paddling in from the sea were also terri- 
fied. But this did not last long. The warriors went 
into the forest and returned with sixteen young girls, 
four of whom they brought to each ship. While the 
white men wondered what this could mean, several old 
crones appeared at the doors of the houses and began 
a furious shrieking. This seemed to be a signal. The 
maidens dived into the sea and made for the shore, and 
a storm of arrows came from the canoemen. The 
fight, however, was not long, and the Spaniards won 
an easy victory, after which they had no further 
trouble. They found a harbor called Maracaibo, and 



lOO DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

twenty-seven Spaniards at the earnest request of the 
natives were entertained as guests among the inland 
villages for nine days. They were carried from place 
to place in litters or hammocks, and when they returned 
to the ships every man of them had a collection of 
gifts — rich plumes, weapons, tropical birds and ani- 
mals — but no gold. The monkeys and parrots were 
very amusing, but they did not make up, in the minds 
of some of the crew, for the gold which had not been 
found. 

Ojeda returned from an exploring journey one day 
with a ruffled temper. " A gang of poachers," he 
sputtered, — " rascally Bristol traders. We shall have 
to teach these folk their place." 

" What really happened? " Vespucci inquired pri- 
vately of Juan de la Cosa. The old mariner's eyes 
twinkled. 

" It was funny. You see, we were coming down to 
the shore, ready to return to the ships, when we spied 
an English ship and some sailors on the beach, dancing 
after they'd caught their fish and eaten 'em. Up 
marches our young caballero with hand on hilt and 
asks whose men they are. But they answered him in 
a language he can't understand, d'ye see, and after 
some jabbering he makes them understand that he 
wants to go on board to see their captain. I went 
along, for I'd no mind to leave him alone if there 
should be trouble. 

" So soon as I set eyes on the captain I knew him 
for a chap I'd seen years ago in Venice. He did me a 
good turn there, too, though he was but a lad. I 
knew he was a Bristol man, but I hadn't expected to 
see him or his ship so far from home. He could talk 
Spanish nearly as well as you do. 



LITTLE VENICE loi 

*' 'What are you doing here? ' asks our worshipful 
commander. 

" ' Looking at the sky,' said the other man, cool as 
a cucumber. ' I think we are going to have a storm.' 

" ' Don't bandy words with me,' says Ojeda. ' You 
are trespassing on my master's dominions.' 

" 'Your master is the Admiral of the Indies, no? ' 
says the stranger, and that pretty near shut our young 
gentleman's mouth for a minute, for between you and 
me I think he knows that Colon has not been well 
treated. But he only got the more furious. 

" ' Do you insult me? ' says he, and whips out his 
Toledo blade and bends it almost double, to show the 
quality. 

" ' Wait a minute, my young hornet,' says the cap- 
tain — he wasn't much more than a boy, himself, — 
' didn't your master the Duke of Medina Coeli teach 
you better than to irritate a man on the deck of his 
own ship ? Mine can sail two leagues to your one, 
and I'm just leaving for home, so, unless you would 
like to go with me, perhaps you will let this conversa- 
tion end without any more pointed remarks. If I chose, 
you know, I could drop you overboard in sight of your 
men, to swim ashore. My guns would stave your long- 
boat all to pieces. But I've stayed long enough to 
give the lads a chance to have a good meal and a bit of 
fun — nothing's better than dancing, for the spirits, 
dad always said it was better than either fighting or 
dicing on shipboard. Before we part, though, I'm 
going to give you one piece of advice. Don't stir up 
these coast natives too often. If you do, they'll eat 
you. They use poisoned arrows in some of these parts, 
and there's no cure for that but a red-hot iron.' 

" The caballero's temper is like gunpowder — it 



102 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

flashes up in a second, or not at all. He must ha' seen 
that the captain meant him kindness. Anyway, he 
slips his sword back in the scabbard and says cool as 
you please, 

" ' Sefior, pardon my hasty conclusion. You have 
of course a perfect right to look at the sky, and to 
dance, if that is your diversion. I should be ex- 
tremely sorry to interfere with your departure. But 
you will understand that when a commander in the ser- 
vice of the sovereigns of Aragon and Castile finds in- 
truders within their territory it is his duty to make it 
his affair. I thank you for your warning. Adios,' 
and he makes a little stiff bow and goes over the side, 
me after him. I looked back just as I went over the 
rail, and the skipper was watching me, and I may be 
mistaken but I believe he winked. I tell you, our lit- 
tle captain can do things that would get him run 
through the body if he were any other man." 

Vespucci smiled thoughtfully. But this incident 
may have had something to do with his later decision 
to part company with Ojeda. Vespucci continued to 
explore the coast, and Ojeda sailed northward to the 
islands, where he kidnaped some Indians for slaves. 
When he returned to Cadiz the young adventurer 
found to his intense disgust that after all expenses were 
paid there remained but five hundred ducats to be di- 
vided among fifty-five men. This was all the more 
mortifying because, two months before, Pedro Alonso 
Nino, a captain of Palos, and Chrlstoval Guerra of 
Seville, had come in from a trading voyage in the 
Indies with the richest cargo of gold and pearls ever 
seen in Cadiz. 

Vespucci wrote his book some years later, and as it 
was the first popular account of the new Spanish pos- 



LITTLE VENICE 103 

sessions and was written in a lively and entertaining 
style it had a great reputation. It gave to the natives 
of the country the name which they have ever since 
borne — Indians. A German geographer who much 
admired the work suggested that an appropriate mark 
of appreciation would be to name the new continent 
America, after Vespucci, and this was done. Ves- 
pucci described all that he saw and some things of 
which he heard, using care and discretion, and if he 
suspected that the captain of the Bristol ship was Sebas- 
tian Cabot, later pilot-major of Spain, he did not say 
so. 

NOTE 

Amerigo Vespucci has been unjustly accused of endeavoring to 
steal the glory of Columbus, but there is no evidence that he ever con- 
templated anything of the kind. It was a German geographer's sug- 
gestion that the continent be named America. 



THE GOLD ROAD 

O the Gold Road is a hard road, 

And it leads beyond the sea, — 
Some follow it through the altar gates 

And some to the gallows tree. 
And they who squander the gold they earn 

On kin-folk ill to please 
Go soon to the grave, but he toils in the grave — 

The miner upon his knees. 

The Gold Road is a dark road — 

No bird by the wayside sings, 
No sun shines into the cafions deep, 

No children's laughter rings. 
They are slaves who delve in the stubborn rocks 

For the pittance their labor brings. 
Their bread is bitter who toil for their own, 

But they starve who toil for Kings. 

The Gold Road is a small road, — 

A man must tread it alone, 
With none to help if he faint or fall, 

And none to hear his groan. 
The weight of gold is a weary weight 

When we toil for the sake of our own — 
But our masters are branding our hearts and souls 

With a Christ that is can'ed in stone! 



104 



VIII 

THE DOG WITH TWO MASTERS 

THEY fight among themselves too much. They 
need the man with the whip." 

" Bough! zvough! " 

"Yar-r-rhf arrh! — agh! " 

A spirited and entertaining dog-fight was going on 
just outside the house of the governor of Darien. The 
deep sullen roar of Balboa's big hound Leoncico was as 
unmistakable as the snarling, snapping, furious bark 
of Cacafuego, who belonged to the Bachelor Enciso. 
The two hated each other at sight, months ago. Now 
they were having it out. The man with the whip evi- 
dently came on the scene, for there was a final crescendo 
of barks, yelps and growls, followed by silence. 

Pizarro's remark, however, did not refer to the dogs 
but to the settlers, who had been rioting over the gov- 
ernorship of the colony. The outcome of this dis- 
turbance had been the practical seizure of the office of 
captain-general by Vasco Nunez de Balboa. Pizarro 
himself, and Juan de Saavedra, to whom he addressed 
his comment, had supported Balboa. Saavedra did 
not commit himself further than to answer, with a 
shrug, " Balboa can use the whip on occasion, we all 
know that. Ah, here he comes now." 

The man and the dog would have attracted atten- 
tion anywhere, separately or together. The man was 
well-made and vigorous, with red-brown hair and beard, 

los 



io6 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

and clear merry eyes, a leader who would rather lead 
than command. The dog was of medium size but very 
powerful, tawny in color with a black muzzle, and the 
scars on his compact body recorded many battles, not 
with other dogs but with hostile Indians. He had been 
his master's body-guard in several fights, and Balboa 
sometimes lent him to his friends, the dog receiving the 
same share of plunder that would have been due to 
an armed man. Leoncico is said to have brought his 
captain in this way more than a thousand crowns. 

"You called him off, eh, General?" Saavedra 
asked, bending to stroke the terrible head. He and 
Vasco Nuiiez had been friends for years; in fact it 
was Saavedra who had managed the smuggling of 
Balboa on board the ship in a cask, to escape his 
creditors, when the expedition set out. They were 
intimate, as men are intimate who are different in 
character but alike in feeling and tradition. Pizarro 
was an outsider and knew it. 

"Yes; Enciso's dog would be better for a whip- 
ping, perhaps, but I had no mind to make the Bachelor 
any more an enemy than he is. Pizarro, — " he turned 
to the soldier of fortune, with a frank smile, " I have 
work for you to do. It is dangerous, but I know that 
you do not care for that. Pick out six good men, and 
be ready to see if there is any truth in those stories 
about the Coyba gold mines." 

Pizarro's black brows unbent. Nothing could have 
suited him better than just these orders. He was, like 
Balboa, a native of the province of Estremadura in 
Spain, and being shut out by his low birth from ad- 
vancement in his own land, had come to the colonies in 
the hope of gaining wealth and position by the sword. 
His reckless courage, iron muscle, and a certain cold 



THE DOG WITH TWO MASTERS 107 

stubbornness had given him the reputation of an able 
man, but though nearly ten years older than Balboa, 
he had never held any but a subordinate position. He 
had nearly made up his mind that his chance would 
never come. These hidalgos wanted all the glory as 
well as all the power for themselves. He could not 
see why Balboa should turn the possible discovery of a 
rich new province over to him, but if the gold should 
be there, Pizarro would get it. He bowed, thanked 
the general, and took his leave. 

" General," said Saavedra, " I never like to put my 
neck in a noose, but if you were only Vasco Nunez I 
would ask you why you made exactly that choice." 

Balboa laughed and pulled the ears of Leoncico, 
who had laid his head in full content on his master's 
knee. " I am always Vasco Nuriez to you, amigo," he 
said easily, " as you very well know. Pizarro is a 
bulldog for bravery, and he has a head on his shoul- 
ders. Also he is ambitious, and this will give him a 
chance to win renown." 

" And keeps him out of mischief for the time be- 
ing," put in Saavedra dryly. 

Balboa laughed again. " Why do you ask me ques- 
tions v/hen you know my mind almost as well as I do? 
You see, now that Enciso is about to go, we shall have 
some freedom to do something besides quarrel among 
ourselves. Gold is an apology for whatever one does, 
out here. If there is as much of it as they say, in this 
Coyba, the King may be able to gild the walls of an- 
other salon, and if he puts Pizarro's portrait in it in 
the place of honor I shall not weep over that. There 
is glory enough for all of us, who choose to earn it." 

Pizarro and his men had not gone ten miles from 
Darien before they ran into an ambush of Indians 



io8 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

armed with slings. The seven Spaniards charged in- 
stantly, and actually put the enemy to flight, then beat 
a quick retreat. Every man of them despite their body 
armor had wounds and bruises, and one was left dis- 
abled upon the field. Balboa met them as they Hmped 
painfully in. His quick eye took in the situation. 

" Only six of you? Where is Francisco Hernan? " 

" He was crippled and could not walk," answered 
Pizarro sulkily; he saw what was coming. Balboa's 
eyes blazed. 

"What! You — Spaniards — ran away from 
savages and left a comrad to die? Go back and 
bring him in! " 

Pizarro turned in silence, took his men back over the 
road just traversed, and brought Hernan safely in. 

This was one of the many incidents by which thej 
colony learned the mettle of the new captain-general. 
Under his direction exploration of the neighboring! 
provinces was undertaken. Balboa with eighty men 
made a friendly visit to Comagre, a cacique who could i 
put three thousand fighting men in the field. Comagre 
and his seven sons entertained the white men in a 
house larger and more like a palace of the Orient than 
any they had before seen. It was one hundred and 
fifty paces long by eighty paces broad, the lower part 
of the walls built of logs, the floors and upper walls of 
beautiful and ingenious wood-work. The son of this 
cacique presented to Balboa seventy slaves, captives 
taken by himself, and golden ornaments weighing al- 
together four thousand ounces. The gold was at once 
melted into Ingots, or bars of uniform size, for pur- 
poses of division. One-fifth of it was weighed out for 
the Crown, the rest divided among the members of the 
expedition. The young cacique stood by watching 



THE DOG WITH TWO MASTERS 109 

with scornful curiosity as the Spaniards argued and 
squabbled over the allotment. Suddenly he struck up 
the scales with his fist, and the shining treasure tumbled 
over the porch floor like spilt corn. 

" Why do you quarrel over this trash? " he asked. 
" If this gold is so precious to you that you leave your 
homes, invade the land of peaceable nations and en- 
dure desperate perils, I will tell you where there is 
plenty of it." 

The Spaniards' attention was Instantly caught and 
held. The young Indian went on, with the same care- 
less contempt, " You see those mountains over there? 
Beyond them is a great sea. The people who dwell on 
the border of that sea have ships almost as big as 
yours, with sails and oars as yours have. The streams 
in their country are full of gold. The King eats from 
golden dishes, for gold is as common there as iron is 
among you," — he glanced at the cumbrous armor and 
weapons of his guests. Indeed the panoply of the 
Spaniards, made necessary by the constant possibility 
of attack, and the weight of their cross-bows and other 
weapons, was a source of continual wonder to the hght 
and nimble Indians, and of much weariness and suffer- 
ing to themselves. Many in time adopted the quilted 
cotton body armor of the natives, and used pikes when 
they could in place of the musketoun, which was like a 
hand-cannon. 

This was not the first time that Balboa and many of 
the others had heard of the Lord of the Golden House, 
but no one else had told the story with such boldness. 
The young cacique said that to invade this land, a 
thousand warriors would be none too many. He of- 
fered to accompany Balboa with his own troops, If the 
white men would go. 



no DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Here indeed was an. enterprise with glory enough for 
all. Balboa returned to Darien and began prepara- 
tions. Valdivia, the regidor of the colony, had been 
sent to Hispaniola for provisions, but the supply he 
brought back was absurdly small. One of the serious 
difficulties encountered by all the first settlers in the 
New World was this matter of provisioning the camps. 
For the Indians the natural fruits and produce of the 
country were sufficient, and they seldom laid up any 
great store. The small surplus of any one chief was 
soon exhausted by a large body of guests. Moreover, 
the country had no cattle, swine, fowls, goats, no do- 
mestic food animals wHatever, no grain but the 
maize. The supply of meat and grain was thus very 
small until Spanish planters could clear and cultivate 
their estates. On the march the troops could and 
did live off the country with less trouble. 

Balboa decided to send Valdivia back to Hispaniola 
for more supplies. He also sent by him a letter to 
Diego Colon, son of the great Admiral and governor 
of the island, explaining his need for more troops in 
view of what he had just learned about a new and 
wealthy kingdom not far away. He frankly requested 
the Governor to use his influence with the King to make 
this discovery possible without delay. 

Weeks passed, and Valdivia did not come back. 
Provisions again became scarce. Then a letter from 
Balboa's friend Zamudio, who had gone to Spain in 
the same ship with the Bachelor Enciso, in order to de- 
fend Balboa's course. Everything, it seemed, had 
gone wrong. The King had listened to the eloquence 
of the Bachelor, and would probably send for Balboa 
to come to Spain to answer criminal charges. It was 
said that he meant to send out as governor of Darien, 



THE DOG WITH TWO MASTERS in 

in the place of Balboa, an old and wily courtier, one of 
Fonseca's favorites, named Pedro Arias de Avila, and 
usually called Pedrarias. 

" That," said Balboa, handing the letter over to 
Saavedra to read, " seems to mean that the fat has 
gone into the fire." 

"What shall you do?" 

" If the King's summons arrives," said Balboa re- 
flectively, " I think I will be on the top of that moun- 
tain range looking for the sea the cacique spoke of." 

" I will go at once and make my preparations," as- 
sented the other. " Did you know that Pizarro has 
adopted that dog — the Spitfire — Enciso's brute ? " 

" Has the dog adopted him? " laughed Balboa, ex- 
tracting a thorn with the utmost care from the paw of 
Leoncico, 

" That is a shrewd question. You know I have a 
theory that a man is known by his dog. This beast 
seems to have changed character when he changed 
masters. When Enciso had him he was little more 
than a puppy, and then he was thievish and cowardly. 
Now he will attack an Indian as savagely as Leoncico 
himself. Pizarro must have put the iron into him." 

" Pizarro can," said Balboa carelessly. " He does 
it with his men. I think there is more in that fellow 
than we have supposed. We shall see — this expedi- 
tion will be a kind of test." 

Saavedra, as he went to his own quarters, wondered 
whether Balboa were really as unconscious and unsus- 
picious as he seemed. 

" Like dog, like master," he said to himself. 
" Cacafuego shifted collars as easily as any mongrel 
does — as readily as Pizarro himself would. I think 
that Leoncico, left here without Balboa, would die. 



112 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Neither a dog or a man has any business with two mas- 
ters. I wonder whether in the end we shall conquer 
this land, or find that the land has conquered us? " 

Balboa set forth with one hundred and ninety picked 
men and a few bloodhounds. Half the company re- 
mained on shore at Coyba to guard the brigantine 
and canoes, and with the others Balboa began the as- 
cent of the range of mountains from whose heights he 
hoped to view the sea. 

In no other time and country have discoverers en- 
countered the obstacles and dangers which confronted 
the Spaniards who first explored Central America. 
Precipitous mountains, matted jungles, barren deserts, 
deep and swift streams, malarious bogs, and hostile 
natives often armed with poisoned weapons, all were 
in their way, and they had to make their overland jour- 
neys on foot, fully armed and often in tropical heat. 
Even when accompanied by Indians familiar with the 
country, they could count on Httle or nothing in the 
way of game or other provisions. Balboa's friendly 
ways with the natives had secured him Indian guides 
and porters, but it was difficult work, even so. In 
four days they traveled no more than ten leagues, and 
it took them from the sixth to the twenty-fifth of Sep- 
tember to cover the ground between the coast of Dar- 
ien and the foot of the last mountain they must climb. 
One-third of the men had been sent back from time to 
time, because of illness and exhaustion. The party 
remained for the night in the village of Quaraqua at 
the foot of the mountain, and at dawn they began their 
ascent, hoping to reach the summit before the hottest 
time of the day. About ten o'clock they came out of 
the thick forest on a high and airy slope of the moun 



( 



THE DOG WITH TWO MASTERS 113 

tain, and the Indians pointed out a hill, from which 
they said the sea was visible. 

Then Balboa commanded the others to rest, while he 
went alone to the top. 

" And this," muttered Pizarro to the man next him, 
" is the man who is always saying that there is enough 
glory for all! " 

Saavedra's quick ear caught the remark. He smiled 
rather satirically. He, and he alone, knew the true 
reason for this action of Balboa's. 

" Juan," the commander had said to him while they 
were wading through their last swamp, " when we are 
somewhere near the summit I shall go on alone. I 
want no one with me when I look down the other side 
of that range. Whether I see a mere lake, which these 
savages may call a sea, or — something greater, I am 
not sure I shall be able to command my feelings. I 
will not be a fool before the men." 

Balboa's heart was thumping as he climbed, more 
with excitement than exertion. No one but Saavedra 
had so much as an inkling of the importance his suc- 
cess or failure would have for him personally. The 
whole of his future lay on the unknown other side of 
that hill. He shut his eyes as he reached the top — 
then opened them upon a glorious view. 

A vast blue sea sparkled in the sunshine, only a few 
leagues away. From the mountain top to the shore of 
this great body of water sloped a wild landscape of 
forest, rock, savanna and winding river. Balboa knelt 
and gave thanks to God. 

Then he sprang to his feet and beckoned to his fol- 
lowers, who rushed up the hill, the great hound Leon- 
cico bounding far ahead. When all had reached the 



114 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

summit Father Andreas de Varo, motioning them to 
kneel, began the chant of Te Deum Laudamus, in 
which the company joined. The notary of the expedi- 
tion then wrote out a testimonial witnessing that Bal- 
boa took possession of the sea, all its islands and sur- 
rounding lands, in the name of the sovereign of Cas- 
tile ; and each man signed it. Balboa had a tall tree cut 
down and made into a cross, which was planted on the 
exact spot where he had stood when he first looked 
upon the sea. A mound of stones was piled up for 
an additional monument, and the names of the sover- 
eigns were carved on neighboring trees. Then Bal- 
boa, leading his men down the southern slope of the 
mountain, sent out three scouting parties under Fran- 
cisco Pizarro, Juan de Escaray and Alonso Martin to 
discover the best route to the shore. Martin's party 
were first to reach it, after two days' journey, and 
found there two large canoes. Martin stepped into 
one of them, calling his companions to witness that he 
was the first European who had ever embarked upon 
those waters; Bias de Etienza, who followed, was the 
second. They reported their success to Balboa, and 
with twenty-six men the commander set out for the 
sea-coast. The Indian chief Chiapes, whom Balboa 
had fought and then made his ally, accompanied the 
party with some of his followers. On Michaelmas 
they reached the shore of a great bay, which in honor 
of the day was christened Bay de San Miguel. The 
tide was out, leaving a beach half a league wide covered 
with mud, and the Spaniards sat down to rest and wait. 
When it turned, it came in so fast that some who had 
dropped asleep found it lapping the bank at their feet, 
before they were fairly roused. 

Balboa stood up, and taking a banner which dis- 



THE DOG WITH TWO MASTERS 115 

played the arms of Castile and Leon, and the figure of 
the Madonna and Child, he drew his sword and 
marched into the sea. In a formal speech he again 
took possession, in the names of the sovereigns, of the 
seas and lands and coasts and ports, the islands of the 
south, and all kingdoms and provinces thereunto ap- 
pertaining. These rights he declared himself ready to 
maintain " until the day of judgment." 

While another document was receiving the signa- 
tures of the members of the expedition, Saavedra, who 
was standing near the margin of the bay, took up a 
little water in his hand and tasted It. It was salt. 

In the excitement of actually reaching the coast of so 
broad and beautiful a sea, no one had happened to 
think of finding out whether the water was fresh or 
salt. This discovery made it certain that they had 
found, not a great Inland lake, but the ocean itself. 

PIzarro scowled; he wished that he had not missed 
this last chance of fame. Since he had discovered 
nothing it was not likely that his name should be men- 
tioned In Balboa's report to the King, at all. But Bal- 
boa, high in expectation of the change which this for- 
tunate adventure would make in his career, went on 
triumphantly exploring the neighboring country, gain- 
ing here and there considerable quantities of gold and 
pearls. Saavedra, who had inherited an estate in 
Spain just before the expedition started, and expected 
on his return to Darlen to go home to look after it, 
watched PIzarro with growing distrust and anxiety. 

" I think you are ready to accuse him of witchcraft," 
said Balboa lightly when Saavedra hinted at his suspi- 
cions. " You have not given me one positive proof 
that the man is anything but a rather sulky, unhappy 
brute who has had ill luck." 



ii6 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

" He is ill-bred, I tell you," said Saavedra stub- 
bornly. " He is making up to the Indians, and that is 
not like him. We shall have trouble there yet." 

Balboa laughed and went to his hut. there to fling 
himself into a hammock and take a much-needed nap. 
Saavedra, coming back in the twilight, spied an Indian 
creeping through the forest toward a window in the 
rear of the hut. He was about to challenge the man 
when there was a yelp from the bushes, and Cacafuego 
leaped upon the prowler and bore him to earth, tear- 
ing savagely at his throat and receiving half a dozen 
wounds from the arrows the Indian carried in his hand 
and in his belt. He had been trained by Pizarro to fly 
at an Indian, and made no distinctions. Within an 
hour or two the poison in the arrow-points began to 
take effect, and the dog died. Whether he had been 
prowling about in search of food — for Pizarro kept 
him hungry with a view to making his temper more 
touchy — or was looking for his old enemy Leoncico, 
no one would ever know. Balboa looked grave and 
said nothing. 

" The dog is dead — that is all that is absolutely 
certain," said Saavedra grimly. " I wish it had been 
his master." 

NOTE 

It is recorded that when Pizarro met Balboa with the order for his 
arrest Balboa thus addressed him: "It is not thus, Pizarro., that you 
were wont to greet me!" Pizarro's jealousy and ill-will are evident 
in the recorded facts, though he does not appear to have been actually 
guilty of treachery to his general. 



COLD O' THE MOON 

Alone with all the stars that rule mankind 

Ruy Faleiro sought to read the fate 

Of his close friend — now by the King's rebuke 

Sent stumbling out of Portugal to seek 

His fortune on the sea-roads of the world. 

But when Faleiro read the horoscope 

It seemed to point to glory — and a grave 

Beyond the sunset. 

When Magalhaens heard 
The prophecy, he smiled, and steadfastly 
Held on his way to that j^oung Emperor, 
The blond shy stripling with the Austrian face, 
And in due time was Admiral of the Fleet 
To sail the seas that lay beyond the world. 

Mid-August was it when the fleet set forth, 
December, when in that Brazilian bay, 
Santa Lucia, they dropped anchor, — then 
Set up a little altar on the beach 
And knelt at Mass in that gray solitude. 

Carvagio the pilot knew the place. 

And said the folk were kindly, — brown, straight-haired, 
Wore feather mantles, used no poisoned flints, 
And only ate man's flesh on holidays. 
Whereat a little daunted, not with fear. 
The mariners met them running to the shore, 
Bought swine of them, and plantains, cassava, 
And for one playing card, the king of clubs, 
The wild men gave six fowls! There were brown roots 
Formed like the turnip, chestnut-like in taste 
And called patata in ship-Spanish — cane 
Wherefrom is made the sugar and the wine 
Of Hispaniola, and the pineapple 

117 



ii8 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

That was like nectar to their sea-parched throats. 
And thus they feasted and were satisfied. 

Like an enchanted Eden seemed the land, 

For birds on dazzling many-colored wings 

Made the trees blossom — parrots red, green, blue, 

Humming-birds like live jewels in the air, 

Strange ducks with spoon-shaped bills, — and overhead 

Like some fantastic frieze of living gold, 

The little yellow monkeys leaped and swung 

Chattering of Setebos in their unknown tongue. 

The old men lived beyond their sevenscore years — 

Or so the people said. They made canots 

Of logs that they carved out with heated stones. 

They slept in hamacs, woven cotton swings. 

Their chiefs were called cacichas — you may find 

All this put down in the thrice precious book 

Written by Pigafetta of Vicenza 

For a queen's pleasure when the voyage was done. 

Then from that shore they sailed, and southward bent, 
And as the long days lengthened, till the nights 
Were but star-circled midnight intervals. 
They wondered of what race and by what seas 
They should find kings at the antipodes. 

Where a great river flowed into the sea 

They found sea-lions, — on another isle 

Strange geese, milk-white and sable, with no wings, 

Who swam instead of flying, and they called 

The place the Isle of Penguins. 

Then they found 
A desolate harbor called San Juliano, 
Where the fierce flame of mutiny broke forth, 
Spaniard on Portuguese turned treacherously 



COLD O' THE MOON 119 

Till in the red midwinter sunrise towered 

The place of execution, and an end 

Was made of the two traitors. Outward flashed the sail 

And left the sea-birds there to tell the tale. 

Beyond there lay a bleak and misty shore, 
And in the fog a wild gigantic form 
White-haired, a savage, called a greeting to them. 
Friendly the huge men were, and took these men. 
Bearded and strange, for kinfolk of their god, 
Setebos, from his home beyond the moon. 
And from their great shoes filled with straw for warmth 
Magalhaens named them men of Patagonia. 

Westward they steered, and buffeted by winds, 
They found a narrow channel, where the fleet 
Halted for council. One returned to Spain 
Laden with falsehood and with mutiny. 
On sailed the others valiantly, their hearts 
Remembering their Admiral's haughty words 
Flung at his craven captain, " I will see 
This great voyage to the end, though we should eat 
The leather from the yards ! " And thus they reached 
The end of that strait path of Destiny, 
And saw beyond the shining Western Sea. 

Northward the Admiral followed that long coast 

Past Masafuera — then began his flight 

Across the great uncharted shining sea. 

And surely there was never stranger voyage. 

The winds were gentle toward him, and no more 

The dreadful laughter of the tempest shrilled, 

Or down upon them pounced the hurricane. 

Therefore Magalhaens, giving thanks to God, 

Named it Pacific, and the lonely sea. 

Still bore him westward where his heart would be. 



I20 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Alone with all the stars of Christendom 

He set his course, — if he had known his fate 

Would he have stayed his hand? Before the end 

Fate the old witch, who often loves to turn 

A man's words on him, kept the ships becalmed 

Even to thirst and famine; when instead 

They fed on leather, gnawed wood, and ate mice 

As did the Patagonian giants, when 

They begged such vermin for a savage feast. 

Then Fate, her jest outworn, blew them to shore 

On the green islands called the Isles of Thieves, 

And brought them to more islands — and still more, 

A kingdom of bright lands in sunny seas. 

Here did the Admiral land, and raise the Cross 

Above that heathen realm, — and here went down 

In battle for strange allies in strange lands. 

So ended his adventure. Yet not so, 

For the Victoria, faithful to his hand 

That laid her charge upon her, southward sailed 

Around the Cape and westward to Seville. 

El Cano brought her in, and her strange tale 

Told to the Emperor. " And the Admiral said," 

He ended, " that indeed these heathen lands 

God meant should all be Christian, for He set 

A cross of stars above the southern sea, 

A passion-flower upon the southern shore, 

To be a sign to great adventurers. 

These be two marvels, — and upon the way 

We gained a kingdom, but we lost a day! " 



IX 

WAMPUM TOWN 

ELEPHANTS' teeth?" 
" A fair lot, but I am sick of the Guinea coast. 
The Lisbon slavers get more of black ivory than we do 
of the white." 

The good Jean Parmentier, who asked the question, 
and the youth called Jean Florin, who answered it, 
were looking at a stanch weather-beaten little cargo- 
ship anchored in the harbor of Dieppe. She had been 
to the Gold Coast, where wild African chiefs con- 
jured elephants' tusks out of the mysterious back coun- 
try and traded them for beads, trinkets and gay cloth. 
In Dieppe this ivory was carved by deft artistic fingers 
into crucifixes, rosaries, httle caskets, and other exqui- 
site bibelots. African ivory was finer, whiter and 
firmer than that of India, and when thus used was al- 
most as valuable as gold. 

But within the last ten years the slave trade had 
grown more profitable than anything else. A Portu- 
guese captain would kidnap or purchase a few score ne- 
groes, take them, chained and packed together like 
convicts, to Lisbon or Seville and sell them for fat 
gold moidores and doubloons. The Spanish conquis- 
tadores had not been ten years in the West Indies be- 
fore they found that Indian slavery did not work. 
The wild people, under the terrible discipline of the 
mines and sugar plantations, died or killed themselves. 

121 



122 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Planters of Hispanlola declared one negro slave worth 
a dozen Indians. 

" I do not wonder that the cacique Hatuey told the 
priest that he would burn forever rather than go to a 
heaven where Spaniards lived," said Jean Florin, 
" To roast a man is no way to change his religion." 

" Some of our folk In Rochelle are of that way of 
thinking," agreed Captain Parmentier dryly. " What 
say you to a western voyage? " 

"Not Brazil? Cabral claims that for Portugal." 

"No; the northern seas — the Baccalaos. Of 
course codfish are not ivory, and it is rough service, but 
Aubert and some of the others think that there may be 
a way to India. Sebastian Cabot tried for it and 
found only icebergs, but Aubert says there is a gulf or 
strait somewhere south of Cabot's course, that leads 
westward and has never been explored." 

" I am tired of the Guinea trade," the youth re- 
peated. " Cape Breton at any rate is not Spanish." 

" Not yet," said Jean Parmentier with emphasis. 

Thus it came about that when Aubert, in 1508, 
poked the prow of his little craft into open water to the 
west of the great island off which men fished for cod, 
there stood beside him a young man who had been 
learning navigation under his direction, and was now 
called Jean Verassen. His real name was Giovanni 
Verrazzano, but nobody in Dieppe knew who the Flor- 
entine Verazzani might be, and during his appren- 
ticeship there he had been known as Florin — the 
Florentine. In his boyhood the magnificent Medici, 
the merchant princes, had ruled Florence. After the 
fall of Constantinople he had seen the mastery of the 
sea pass from Venice to Lisbon. When he left Flor- 
ence he followed the call of the sea-wind westward 



WAMPUM TOWN 123 

until now he had cast his lot with the seafarers of 
northern France, the only bit of the Continent that was 
outside the shadow of the mighty power of Spain. 
That shadow was growing bigger and darker year by 
year. The heir to the Spanish throne, Charles, grand- 
son of Ferdinand and Isabella, would be emperor of 
Germany, ruler of the Netherlands, King of Aragon, 
Castile, Granada and Andalusia, and sovereign of all 
the Spanish discoveries in the West; and no one knew 
how far they might extend. France might have to 
fight for her life. , 

Meanwhile Norman and Breton fishermen went 
scudding across the North Atlantic every year, like so 
many petrels. Honfleur, Saint Malo, La Rochelle and 
Dieppe owed their modest prosperity to the cod. Bac- 
calao, codfish or stockfish, all its names referred to 
the beating of the fish while drying, with a stick, to 
make it more tender; it was cheaper and more plenti- 
ful than any other fish for the Lenten tables and fast- 
days of Europe. The daring French captains found 
the fishing trade a hard life but a clean one. 

From the fishermen Aubert and Verrazzano had 
learned something of the nature of the country. Bears 
would come down to steal fish from under the noses of 
the men. Walrus and seal and myriads of screaming 
sea-gulls greeted them every season. The natives 
were barbarous and unfriendly. North of Newfound- 
land were two small islands known as the Isles of De- 
mons, where nobody ever went. Veteran pilots told 
of hearing the unseen devils howling and shrieking in 
the air. " Saint Michael ! tintamarre terrible ! " they 
said, crossing themselves. The young Florentine lis- 
tened and kept his thoughts to himself. He* had never 
seen any devils, but he had seen men go mad in the 



124 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

hot fever-mist of African swamps, thinking they saw 
them. 

Aubert was not sure whether this was an inlet, a 
strait or a river behind the great barren island. When 
he had sailed westward for eighty leagues the water 
was still salt. The banks had drawn closer together 
and rude fortifications appeared on the heights. Ca- 
noes put forth from the wooded shores and surrounded 
the sailing ship. They were filled with copper-colored 
warriors of threatening aspect. 

The French commander did not like what he saw. 
He was not provisioned for a voyage around the world, 
and if these waters were the eastern entrance to a 
strait he might emerge upon a vast unknown ocean. 
If on the other hand he was at the mouth of a river, 
to ascend it might result in being cut off by hostile 
savages, which would be most unpleasant. A third 
consideration was that the inhabitants were said to live 
on fish, garn,e, and berries, none of which could be se- 
cured, either peaceably or by fighting, in an enemy's 
country. Making hostages of seven young savages 
who climbed his bulwarks without any invitation, he 
put about and sailed away. During the following year 
the seven wild men were exhibited at Rouen and else- 
where. 

Aubert had made sure of one thing at least; the 
land to the west was not in the least like the rich is- 
lands which the Spanish held in the tropics. Except in 
the brief season when the swarming cod filled the seines 
of the fishermen, it yielded no wealth, not even in 
slaves, for the fierce and shy natives would be almost 
uncatchable and quite impossible to tame. 

Francis of Angouleme, the brilliant, reckless and 
extravagant young French King, was hard pushed to 



WAMPUM TOWN 125 

get money for his own Court, and was not interested 
in expeditions whose only result might be glory. He 
jested over the threatening Spanish dominion as he did 
over everything else. Italian dukedoms were over- 
run by troops from France, Spain, Austria and Switzer- 
land, and Francis welcomed Italian artists, architects 
and poets to his capital. When the plague attacked 
Paris he removed to one of the royal chateaux in the 
country or paid visits to great noblemen like his cousin 
Charles de Bourbon. It was in 1522 at Moulins, the 
splendid country estate of the Due de Bourbon, that 
the monarch met a captain of whom he had heard a 
great deal — all of it gratifying. He had in mind a 
new enterprise for this Verrazzano. 

During the last seven or eight years Verrazzano, 
like many other captains, had been engaged in the 
peculiar kind of expedition dubbed piracy or privateer- 
ing according to the person speaking. France and 
Spain were neither exactly at peace nor openly at war. 
The Florentine had gone out upon the high seas in 
command of a ship fitted out and armed at his own risk, 
and fought Spanish galleons wherever he met them. 
This helped to embarrass the King of Spain in his wars 
abroad. Galleons eastward bound were usually treas- 
ure-ships. The colonial governors, planters, captains 
and common soldiers took all the gold they could get 
for themselves, and the gold, silver and pearls that 
went as tribute to the royal master in Spain had to run 
the gauntlet of these fierce and fearless sea-wolves. 
The wealth of the Indies was really a possession of 
doubtful value. It attracted pirates as honey draws 
flies. When these pirates turned a part of their spoils 
over to kings who were not friendly to Spain, it was 
particularly exasperating. 



126 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Francis had asked Verrazzano to come to Moullns 
because, from what he had heard, it seemed to him 
that here was a man who could take care of himself 
and hold his tongue, and he liked such men. The ex- 
perience reminded the Florentine of the great days of 
the Medici. Charles de Bourbon's palace at Moulins 
was fit for a king. Unlike most French chateaux, 
which were built on low lands among the hunting for- 
ests, it stood on a hill in a great park, and was sur- 
rounded with terraces, fountains, and gardens in the 
Italian style. Moreover its furniture was permanent, 
not brought in for royal guests and then taken away. 
The richness and beauty of its tapestries, state beds, 
decorations, and other belongings was beyond anything 
in any royal palace of that time. The duke's house- 
hold included five hundred gentlemen in rich suits of 
Genoese velvet, each wearing a massive gold chain 
passing three times round the neck and hanging low 
in front; they attended the guests in divisions, one hun- 
dred at a time. 

The feasting was luxurious, and many of its choice 
dishes were supplied by the estate. There were rare 
fruits and herbs in the gardens, and a great variety of 
game-birds and animals in the park and the forest. 
But there were also imported delicacies — Windsor 
beans, Genoa artichokes, Barbary cucumbers and Milan 
parsley. The first course consisted of Medoc oysters, 
followed by a light soup. The fish course included the 
royal sturgeon, the dorado or sword-fish, the turbot. 
Then came heron, cooked in the fashion of the day, 
with sugar, spice and orange-juice; olives, capers and 
sour fruits.; phe.asants, red-legged partridges, and the 
favorite roast, sucking-pig parboiled and then roasted 



WAMPUM TOWN 127 

with a stuffing of chopped meats, herbs, raisins and 
damson plums. There were salads of fruit, — such 
as the King's favorite of oranges, lemons and sugar 
with sweet herbs, — or of herbs, such as parsley and 
mint with pepper, cinnamon and vinegar. For des- 
sert there were Italian ices and confectionery, and the 
Queen's favorite plum, Reine Claude, imported from 
Italy; the white wine called Clairette-au-miel, hypo- 
eras, gooseberry and plum wines, lemonade, cham- 
pagne. There was never a King who could appreciate 
such artistic luxury more deeply than Francis I. This 
may be one reason for his warm welcome of Verraz- 
zano, who seemed to be able to increase the wealth of 
his country and his King. 

" I have had a very indignant visit from the Span- 
ish ambassador," said Francis when they were seated 
together in a private room. " He says that there has 
been piracy on the high seas, my Verrazzano." 

The Italian met the laughing glance of the King 
with a somber gleam in his own dark eyes. " Does 
one steal from a robber?" he asked. "Not a quill 
of gold-dust nor an ingot of silver nor a seed-pearl 
comes honestly to Spain. It is all cruelty, bribery, slav- 
ery. Savonarola threatened Lorenzo de' Medici with 
eternal fires, prince as he was, for sins that were pecca- 
dilloes beside those of Spanish governors." 

" There is something in what you say," assented 
Francis lightly. " If we get the treasure of the In- 
dies without owning the Indies we are certainly rid of 
much trouble. I never heard of Father Adam mak- 
ing any will dividing the earth between our brother of 
Spain and our brother of Portugal. Unless they can 
find such a document — " the laughing face hardened 



128 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

suddenly into keen attention, " we may as well take 
what we can get where we can find it. And now about 
this road to India; what have you to suggest?" 

Verrazzano outlined his plans in brief speech and 
clear. The proposed voyage might have two objects; 
one, the finding of a route to Asia if it existed; the 
other, the discovery of other countries from which 
wealth might be gained, in territory not yet explored. 
Verrazzano pointed out the fact that, as the earth 
was round, the shortest way to India ought to be near 
the pole rather than near the equator, yet far enough 
to the south to escape the danger of icebergs. 

" Very well then," — the King pondered with finger 
on cheek. " Say as little as possible of your prepara- 
tions, use your own discretion, and if any Spaniards 
try to interfere with you — " the monarch grinned, — 
" tell them that it is my good pleasure that my sub- 
jects go where they like." 

The Spanish agents in France presently informed 
their employer that the Florentine Verrazzano was 
again making ready to sail for regions unknown. Per- 
haps he did not himself know where he should go; at 
any rate the spies had not been able to find out. 

Two months later news came that before Verraz- 
zano had gone far enough to be caught by the squa- 
dron lying in wait for him, he had pounced on the 
great carrack which had been sent home by Cortes 
loaded with Aztec gold. In convoying this prize to 
France he had caught another galleon coming from 
Hispaniola with a cargo of gold and pearls, and the 
two rich trophies were now in the harbor of La 
Rochelle, where the audacious captain was doubtless 
making ready for another piratical voyage. 

Verrazzano made a second start a little later, but 



WAMPUM TOWN 129 

was driven back by a Biscay storm. Finally, toward 
the end of the year 1523, he set out once more with 
only one ship, the Dauphine, out of his original fleet of 
four, and neither friend nor foe caught a glimpse of 
him during the voyage. In March, 1524, having 
sailed midway between the usual course of the West 
Indian galleons and the path of the fishers going to 
and from the Banks of Newfoundland, he saw land 
which he felt sure had not been discovered either by 
ancient or modern explorers. 

It was a low shore on which the fine sand, some fif- 
teen feet deep, lay drifted into hillocks or dunes. 
Small creeks and inlets ran inland, but there seemed to 
be no good harbor. Beyond the sand-dunes were for- 
ests of cypress, palm, bay and other trees, and the wind 
bore the scent of blossoming trees and vines far out to 
sea. For fifty leagues the Dauphine followed the 
coast southward, looking for a harbor, for Verrazzano 
knew that pearl fisheries and spices were far more likely 
to be found in southern than in northern waters. No 
harbor appeared. The daring navigator knew that 
if he went too far south he ran some risk of encoun- 
tering a Spanish fleet, and that after his getting two of 
the most valuable cargoes ever sent over seas, they 
would be patroling all the. tropical waters in the hope 
of catching him. He turned north again. 

On the shore from time to time little groups of 
savages appeared moving about great bonfires, and 
watching the- ship. They wore hardly any clothing 
except the skin of some small animal like a marten, at- 
tached to a belt of woven grass; their skins were russet- 
brown and their thick straight black hair was tied 
in a knot rather like a tail. 

" One thing is certain," said young Frangois Par- 



130 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

mender cheerfully, " these folk have never seen Span- 
iards — or Portuguese. Even on the Labrador the 
people ran from us, after Cortereale went slave-steal- 
ing there." 

Verrazzano smiled. Young Parmentier was always 
full of hope and faith. A httle later the youth volun- 
teered to be one of a boat's crew sent ashore for water, 
and provided himself with a bagful of the usual trink- 
ets for gifts. The surf ran so high that the boat could 
not land, and Francois leaped overboard and swam 
ashore. Here he scattered his wares among the watch- 
ing Indians, and then, leaping into the waves again, 
struck out for the boat. But the surf dashed him back 
upon the sand into the very midst of the natives, who 
seized him by the arms and legs and carried him toward 
the fire, while he yelled with astonishment and terror. 

Verrazzano was if anything more horrified than 
Francois himself; this was the son of his oldest friend. 
The Indians were removing his clothing as if they 
were about to roast him alive. But it appeared pres- 
ently that they only wished to dry his clothes and com- 
fort him, for they soon allowed him to return to the 
boat, seeing this was his earnest desire, and watched 
him with the greatest friendliness as he swam back. 

No strait appeared, but at one point Verrazzano, 
landing and marching into the interior with an explor- 
ing party, found a vast expanse of water on the other 
side of what seemed a neck of land between the two 
seas, about six miles in width. If this were the South 
Sea, the same which Balboa had seen from the Isthmus 
of Darien, so narrow a strip of land was at least as 
good or better than anything possessed by Spain. Ver- 
razzano continued northward, and found a coast rich 
in grapes, the vines often covering large trees around 



WAMPUM TOWN 131 

which the natives kept the ground clear of shrubs that 
might interfere with this natural vineyard. Wild 
roses, violets, lilies, iris and many other plants and 
flowers, some quite unknown to Europe, greeted the 
admiring gaze of the commander. His quick mind 
pictured a royal garden adorned with these foreign 
shrubs and herbs, the wainscoting and furniture to be 
made by French and Italian joiners from these endless 
leagues of timber, the stately churches andl castles 
which might be built by skilful masons from the abun- 
dant stone along these shores. Here was a province 
which, if it had not gold, had the material for many 
luxuries which must otherwise be bought with gold, and 
his clear Italian brain perceived that ingots of gold and 
silver are not the only treasure of kings. 

At last the Dauphine came into a harbor or lake 
three leagues in circumference, where more than thirty 
canoes were assembled, filled with people. Suddenly 
Francois Parmentier leaped to his feet and waved his 
cap with a shout. 

" Now what madness has taken you? " queried Ver- 
razzano, 

" I know where we are, that's all. This is Wam- 
pum Town, — LAnorme Berge — the Grand Scarp. 
This is one of their great trading places. Captain. 
Father heard about it at Cape Breton from some 
south-country savages." 

" And what may wampum be? " asked Verrazzano 
coolly. 

" 'T is the stuff they use for money — bits of shell 
made into beads and strung into a belt. There is an 
island in this bay where they make it out of their shell- 
fish middens — two kinds — purple and white. On 
my word, this big chief has on a wampum belt now! " 



132 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

This was interesting information indeed, and the 
natives seemed prepared to traffic in all peace and 
friendliness. Verrazzano found upon investigation 
that on the north of this bay a very large river, deep 
at the mouth, came down between steep hills. After- 
ward, following the shore to the east, he discovered 
a fine harbor beyond a three-cornered island. Here 
he met two chiefs of that country, a man of about 
forty, and a young fellow of twenty-four, dressed in 
quaintly decorated deerskin mantles, with chains set 
with colored stones about their necks. He stayed two 
weeks, refitting the ship with provisions and other nec- 
essaries, and observing the place. The crew got by 
trading and as gifts the beans and corn cultivated by 
the people, wild fruits and nuts, and furs. Further 
north they found the tribes less friendly, and at last 
came so near the end of their provision that Verraz- 
zano decided to return to France. He reached home 
July 8, 1524, after having sailed along seven hundred 
leagues of the Atlantic coast. 

Francis I. was in the thick of a disastrous war with 
Spain, and had not time just then to consider further 
explorations. The war was not fairly over when a 
Cadiz warship, in 1527, caught Verrazzano and 
hanged him as a pirate. 

NOTE 

The not unnatural conclusion of Verrazzano that what he saw was 
an ocean or a great inland sea led to extraordinary misconceptions in 
the maps and charts of the time. It was not until the early part of 
the seventeenth century that the region was actually explored, by 
Newport and Smith, and found to be only Chesapeake Bay. 




THE NATIVKS SKKMED PREPARED TO TRAFFICK IN ALL PEACE AXU 
FRIENDLINESS." 

—Page 132 



THE DRUM 

I wake the gods with my sullen boom — 

I am the Drum ! 
Thej'^ wait for the blood-red flowers that bloom 
In the heart of the sacrifice, there in the gloom 

With terror dumb — 
I sound the call to his dreadful doom — 

I am the Drum! 

I was the Serpent, the Sacred Snake — 

Wolf, bear and fox 
By the silent shores of river and lake 
Tread softly, listening lest they wake 

My voice that mocks 
The rattle that falling bones will make 

On barren rocks. 

My banded skin is the voice of the Priest — 

I am the Drum! 
I sound the call to the War-God's feast 
Till Tezcatlipoca's power hath ceased 
And the White Gods come 
Out of the fire of the burning East — 

Hear me, the Drum! 



1.33 



THE GODS OF TAXMAR 

IF the Fathers of the Church had ever been on the 
other side of the world, they would have m^de new 
rules for it. 

So thought Jeronlmo Aguilar, on board a caravel 
plying between Darien and Hispaniola. It was a 
thought he would hardly have dared think in Spain. 

He was a dark thin young friar from the mountains 
near Seville. In 1488 his mother, waiting, as women 
must, for news from the wars, vowed that if God and 
the Most Catholic Sovereigns drove out the Moors 
and sent her husband home to her, she would give her 
Infant son to the Church. That was twenty-four 
years ago, and never had the power of the Church 
been so great as it now was. When the young Fray 
Jeronimo had been moved by fiery missionary preach- 
ing to give himself to the work among the Indians, 
his mother wept with astonishment and pride. 

But the Indies he found were not the Indies he had 
heard of. Men who sailed from Cadiz valiant if 
rough and hard-bitted soldiers of the Cross, turned 
into cruel adventurers greedy for gold, hard masters 
abusing their power. The innocent wild people of 
Colon's island Eden were charged by the planters with 
treachery, theft, murderous conspiracy, and utter lazi- 
ness. With a little bitter smile Aguilar remembered 
how the hidalgo, who would not dig to save his life, 

134 



THE GODS OF TAXMAR 135 

railed at the Indian who died of the work he had never 
learned to do. It was not for a priest to oppose the 
policy of the Church and the Crown, and very few 
priests attempted it, whatever cruelty they might see. 
Aguilar half imagined that the demon gods of the 
heathen were battling against the invading apostles of 
the Cross, poisoning their hearts and defeating their 
aims. It was all like an evil enchantment. 

These meditations were ended by a mighty buffet of 
wind that smote the caravel and sent it flying north- 
west. Ourakan was abroad, the Carib god of the 
hurricane, and no one could think of anything there- 
after but the heaving, tumbling wilderness of black 
waves and howling tempest and hissing spray. Val- 
dlvla, regldor of Darlen, had been sent to HIspanlola 
by Balboa, the governor, with Important letters and a 
rich tribute of gold, to get supplies and reinforcements 
for the colony. Shipwreck would be disastrous to Bal- 
boa and his people as well as to the voyagers. 

Headlong the staggering ship was driven upon Los 
VIboros, (The Vipers) that Infamous group of hidden 
rocks off Jamaica. She was pounded to pieces almost 
before Valdlvia could get his one boat Into the water, 
with its crew of twenty men. Without food or drink, 
sails or proper oars, the survivors tossed for thirteen 
dreadful days on the uncharted cross-currents of un- 
known seas. Seven died of hunger, thirst and exposure 
before the tide that drifted northwest along the coast 
of the mainland caught them and swept them ashore. 

None of them had ever seen this coast. Valdlvia 
cherished a faint hope that It might be a part of the 
kingdom of walled cities and golden temples, of which 
they had all heard. There were traces of human pres- 
ence, and they could see a cone-shaped low hill with a 



136 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

stone temple or building of some kind on the top. 
Natives presently appeared, but they broke the boat 
in pieces and dragged the castaways inland through the 
forest to the house of their cacique. 

That chief, a villainous looking savage in a thatched 
hut, looked at them as if they had been cattle — or 
slaves — or condemned heretics. What they thought, 
felt or hoped was nothing to him. He ordered them 
taken to a kind of pen, where they were fed. So great 
is the power of the body over the mind that for a few 
days they hardly thought of anything but the unspeak- 
able joy of having enough to eat and drink, and nothing 
to do but sleep. The cacique visited the enclosure now 
and then, and looked them over with a calculating eye. 
Aguilar was haunted by the idea that this inspection 
meant something unpleasant. 

All too soon the meaning was made known to them. 
Valdivia and four other men who were now less gaunt 
and famine-stricken than when captured, were seized 
and taken away, to be sacrificed to the gods. 

It was the custom of the Mayas of Yucatan to sac- 
rifice human beings, captives or slaves for choice, to 
the gods in whose honor the stone pyramids were 
raised. When the victim had been led up the winding 
stairway to the top, the central figure in a procession 
of priests and attendants, he was laid upon a stone 
altar and his heart was cut out and offered to the idol, 
after which the body was eaten at a ceremonial feast. 
The eight captives who remained now understood that 
the food they had had was meant merely to fatten them 
for future sacrifice. Half mad with horror, they 
crouched in the hot moist darkness, and listened to the 
uproar of the savages. 

A strong young sailor by the name of Gonzalo Guer- 



THE GODS OF TAXMAR 137 

rero, who had done good service during the hurricane, 
pulled Jeronimo by the sleeve. *' What in the name 
of all the saints can we do, Padre?" he muttered. 
" Jose and the rest will be raving maniacs," 

Aguilar straightened himself and rose to his feet 
where the rays of the moon, white and calm, shone into 
the enclosure. Lifting his hands to heaven he began 
to pray. 

AH he had learned from books and from the dis- 
putations and sermons of the Fathers fell away from 
him and left only the bare scaffolding, the faith of his 
childhood. At the familiar syllables of the Ave Maria 
the shuddering sailors hushed their cries and oaths and 
listened, on their knees. 

This was a handful of castaways in the clutch of a 
race of man-eaters who worshiped demons. But above 
them bent the tender and pitiful Mother of Christ who 
had seen her Son crucified, and Christ Himself stood 
surrounded by innumerable witnesses. Among the 
saints were some who had died at the hands of the 
heathen, many who had died by torture. The poor 
and ignorant men who listened were caught up for the 
moment into the vision of Fray Jeronimo and regained 
their self-control. When the prayer was ended Gon- 
zalo Guerrero sprang up, and rallied them to furious 
labor. Under his direction and Aguilar's they dug 
and wrenched at their cage like desperate rats, until 
they broke away enough of it just to let a man's body 
through. Aguilar was the last to go. He closed the 
hole and heaped rubbish outside it, as rubbish and 
branches had been piled where they were used to sleep, 
to delay as long as possible the discovery of their es- 
cape. They got clear away into the depths of the 
forest. 



138 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

But for men without provisions or weapons the wild- 
erness of that unknown land was only less dreadful 
than death. Trees and vines barren of fruit, streams 
where a huge horny lizard ate all the fish — El La- 
garto he was called by the discoverers, — no grain or 
cattle which might be taken by stealth — this was the 
realm into which they had been exiled. When they 
ventured out of the forest, driven by famine, they were 
captured by Acan Xooc, the cacique of another prov- 
ince, Jamacana. Here they were made slaves, to cut 
wood, carry water and bear burdens. Water was 
scarce in that region. There had been reservoirSj built 
in an earlier day, but these were ruined, and water had 
to be carried in earthern jars. The cacique died, and 
another named Taxmar succeeded him. Year after 
year passed. The soul of one worn-out white man 
slipped away, followed by another, and another, until 
only Aguilar and Guerrero were left alive. 

Taxmar sent the sailor as a present to a friend, 
cacique of Chatemal, but kept Aguilar for himself, 
watching his ways. 

The cacique was a sagacious heathen of considerable 
experience, but he had never seen a man like this one. 
Jeronimo was now almost as dark as an Indian and 
had not a scrap of civilized clothing, yet he was unlike 
the other white men, unlike any other slave. He had 
a string of dried berries with a cross made of reeds 
hung from it, which he sometimes appeared to be 
counting, talking to himself in his own language. 
Taxmar had once seen a slave from the north who had 
been a priest in his own country and knew how to re- 
member things by string-talk, knotting a string in a 
peculiar fashion; but he was not like this man. When 



THE GODS OF TAXMAR 139 

the white slave saw the crosses carved on their old 
walls he had eagerly asked how they came there, and 
Taxmar gathered that the cross had some meaning in 
the captive's own religion. He never lied, never stole, 
never got angry, never tattled of the other slaves, 
never disobeyed orders, never lost, his temper. Tax- 
mar could not remember when he himself had ever 
been restrained by anything but policy from taking 
whatever he wanted. Here was a man who could deny 
himself even food at times, when he was not compelled 
to. Taxmar could not understand. 

What he did not know was, that when he had es- 
caped from the cannibals Aguilar had made a fresh 
vow to keep with all strictness every vow of his priest- 
hood, and to bear his lot with patience and meekness 
until it should be the will of God to free him from the 
savages. He had begun to think that this freedom 
would never be his in his lifetime, but a vow was a 
vow. He no more suspected that Taxmar was taking 
note of his behavior, than a man standing in front of 
the lion's cage at the menagerie can translate the 
thoughts behind the great cat's intent eyes. 

Taxmar began to try experiments. He invented 
temptations to put in the way of his slave, but Aguilar 
generally did not seem to see them. One day the In- 
dians were shooting at a mark. One came up to 
Aguilar and seized him by the arm. 

"How would you like to be shot at?" he said. 
" These bowmen hit whatever they aim at — if they 
aim at a nose they hit a nose. They can shoot so near 
you that they miss only by the breadth of a grain of 
corn — or do not miss at all." 

Aguilar never flinched, although from what he knew 



140 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

of the savages he thought nothing more likely than his 
being set up for a San Sebastian. He answered 
quietly, 

" I am your slave, and you can do with me what you 
please. I think you are too wise to destroy one who is 
both useful and obedient." 

The suggestion had been made by the order of Tax- 
mar, and the answer was duly reported to him. 

It took a long time to satisfy the chief that this 
man who seemed so extraordinary was really what he 
seemed. He came at last to trust him wholly, even 
making him the steward of his household and leaving 
him to protect his women in his absence. Finding the 
chief thus disposed, Aguilar ventured a suggestion. 
Guerrera had won great favor with his master by his 
valor in war. Aguilar was shrewd enough to know 
that though it was' very pleasant to have his master's 
confidence, if anything happened to Taxmar he might 
be all the worse off. The only sure way to win the 
respect of these barbarians was by efficiency as a sol- 
dier. Taxmar upon request gave his steward the mili- 
tary outfit of the Mayas — ■ bow and arrows, wicker- 
work shield, and war-club, with a dagger of obsidian, 
a volcanic stone very hard and capable of being made 
very keen of edge, but brittle. Jeronimo when a boy 
had been an expert archer, and his old skill soon re- 
turned. He also remembered warlike devices and 
stratagems he had seen and heard of. Old soldiers 
chatting with his father in the purple twilight had often 
fought their battles over again, and nearly every form 
of military tactics then known to civilized armies had 
been used in the war in Granada. Naturally the 
young friar had heard more or less discussion of mil- 
itary campaigns in Darien. His suggestions were so 



THE GODS OF TAXMAR 141 

much to the point that Taxmar had an increased re- 
spect for the gods of that unknown land of his. If 
they could do so much for this slave, without even de- 
manding any offerings, they must be very different 
from the gods of the Mayas. 

In reply to Taxmar's questions, Aguilar, who now 
spoke the language quite well, endeavored to explain 
the nature of his religion. Not many of the Spaniards 
who expected to convert the Indians went so far as 
this. If they could by any means whatever make their 
subjects call themselves Christians and observe the 
customs of the Church, it was all they attempted. 
Taxmar was not the sort of person to.be converted in 
that informal way. He demanded reasons. If 
Aguilar advised him against having unhappy people 
murdered to bribe the gods for their help in the coming 
campaign, he wished to know what the objection was, 
and what the white chiefs did in such a case. The idea 
of sacrificing" to one's god, not the lives of men, but 
one's own will and selfish desires, was entirely new to 
him. 

While Jeronimo was still wrestling with the problem 
of making the Christian faith clear to one single In- 
dian out of the multitudes of the heathen, a neighbor- 
ing cacique appeared on the scene, — jealous, angry and 
suspicious. He had heard, he said, that Taxmar 
sought the aid of a stranger, who worshiped strange 
gods, in a campaign directed against his neighbors. 
He wished to know if Taxmar considered this right. 
In his own opinion this stranger ought to be sacrificed 
to the gods of the Mayas after the usual custom, or the 
gods would be angry, — and then no one knew what 
would happen. 

Aguilar thought it possible that Taxmar might reply 



142 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

that the conduct of an army was no one's business but 
the chief's. That would be in line with the cacique's 
character as he knew it. He did not expect that any 
chief in that ancient land would dare to defy its gods 
openly. 

Taxmar did not meet the challenge at once. His 
deep set opaque black eyes and mastiff-like mouth 
looked as immovable as the carving on the basalt stool 
upon which he sat. The cacique thought he was im- 
pressed, and concluded triumphantly, 

" Who can resist the gods? Let the altar drink the 
blood of the stranger; it is sweet to them and they will 
sleep, and not wake." 

" I shall do nothing of the kind," said Taxmar, the 
clicking, bubbling Maya talk dropping like water on 
hot stones. " When a man serves me well, I do not 
reward him with death. My slave's wisdom is greater 
than the craft of Coyotl, and if his gods help me it is 
because they know enough to do right." 

The other chief went home in rage and disappoint- 
ment and offended dignity. 

No one, who has not tried it, can imagine the sensa- 
tion of living in a hostile land, removed from all that 
is familiar. Until his captivity began Aguilar had 
never been obhged to act for himself. He had always 
been under the authority of a superior. He had ques- 
tioned and wondered, seen the injustice of this thing 
and that, but only in his own mind. When everything 
in his past life had been swept away at one stroke, his 
faith alone was left him in the wrecked and distorted 

* 

world. He had never dreamed that Taxmar was 
learning to respect that faith. 

The neighboring cacique now joined Taxmar's en- 



THE GODS OF TAXMAR 143 

emies with all his army, and the councilors took alarm 
and repeated the suggestion that Aguilar should be 
sacrified to make sure of the help of the gods. Tax- 
mar again spoke plainly. 

" Our gods," he said, " have helped us when we 
were strong and powerful and sacrificed many captives 
in their honor. This man's gods help him when he is 
a slave, alone, far from his people, with nothing to 
offer in sacrifice. We will see now what they will do 
for my army." 

In the battle which followed, the cacique adopted a 
plan which Aguilar suggested. That loyal follower 
was placed in command of a force hidden in the woods 
near the route by which the enemy would arrive. The 
hostile forces marched past it, and charged upon the 
front of Taxmar's army. It gave way, and they 
rushed in with triumphant yells. When they were 
well past, Aguilar's division came out of the bushes and 
took them in the rear. At the same instant Taxmar 
and his warriors faced about and sprang at them like 
a host of panthers. There was a great slaughter, 
many prisoners were taken, among them the cacique 
himself and many men of importance; and Taxmar 
made a little speech to them upon the wisdom of the 
white man's gods. 

In the years that passed the captive's hope of escape 
faded. Once he had thought he might slip away and 
reach the coast, but he was too carefully watched. 
Even if he could get to the sea from so far inland, 
without the help of the natives, he could not reach any 
Spanish colony without a boat. There were rumors 
of strange ships filled with bearded men, whose weap- 
ons were the thunder and the lightning. Old people 



144 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

wagged their heads and recalled a prophecy of the 
priest Chilam Cambal many years ago, that a white 
people, bearded, would come from the east, to over- 
turn the images of the gods, and conquer the land. 

Hernando de Cordova's squadron came and went; 
Grijalva's came and went; Aguilar heard of them but 
never saw them. At last, seven long years after he 
came to Jamacana, three coast Indians from the island 
of Cozumel came timidly to the cacique with gifts and 
a letter. The gifts were for Taxmar, to buy his 
Christian slaves, if he had any, and the letter was for 
them. 

Hernando Cortes, coming from Cuba with a squad- 
ron to discover and conquer the land ruled by the Lord 
of the Golden House, had stopped at Cozumel and 
there heard of white men held as captives somewhere 
inland. He had persuaded the Indians to send mes- 
sengers for them, saying that if the captives were sent 
to the sea-coast, at the cape of Cotoche, he would leave 
two caravels there eight days, to wait for them. 

While Aguilar read this letter the Indians were 
telling of the water-houses of the strangers, their sharp 
weapons, their command of thunder and lightning, and 
the wonderful presents they gave in exchange for what 
they wanted. Aguilar's account of the squadron was 
even more complete. He described the dress of the 
Spaniards, their weapons and their manner of life 
without having seen them at all, and the Indians, when 
asked, said it was so. 

Taxmar's acute mind was adjusting itself to this 
event, which was not altogether unexpected. He had 
heard more than Aguilar had about the previous visits 
of the Spaniards to that coast. He asked Aguilar if 



THE GODS OF TAXMAR 145 

he thought that the strange warriors would accept him, 
their countryman, as ambassador, and deal mildly with 
Taxmar and his people, if they let him go. Aguilar 
answered that he thought they would. 

Now freedom was within his grasp, and only one 
thing delayed him. Fie could not leave his comrade 
Guerrero behind. The sailor had married the daugh- 
ter of a chief and become a great man in his adopted 
country. Aguilar sent Indian messengers with the let- 
ter and a verbal message, and waited. 

Guerrero had never known much about reading, and 
he had forgotten nearly all he knew. He understood, 
however, that he could now return to Spain. Before 
his eyes rose a picture of the lofty austere sierras, the 
sunny vineyards, the wine, so unlike pulque, the bread, 
so unlike flat cakes of maize, the maidens of Barcelona 
and Malaga, so very different from tattooed Indian 
girls. And then he surveyed his own brawny arms and 
legs, and felt of his own grotesquely ornamented 
countenance. 

To please the taste of his adopted people he had let 
himself be decorated as they were, for life, — with 
tattooed pictures, with nose-ring, with ear-rings of 
gold set with rudely cut gems and heavy enough to 
drag down the lobe of the ear. He would cut a figure 
in the streets of Seville. The little boys would run 
after him as if he were a show. He grinned, sighed 
mightily, and sent word to Aguilar that he thought it 
wiser to stay where he was. Aguilar set out for the 
coast with the Cozumel Indians, but this delay had con- 
sumed all of the eight days appointed, and when they 
reached Point Cotoche the caravels had gone. 

But a broken canoe and a stave from a water-barrel 
lay on the beach, and with the help of the messengers 



146 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Aguilar patched up the canoe, and with the board for a 
paddle, made the canoe serve his need. Following the 
coast they came to the narrowest part of the channel 
between the mainland and Cozumel, and in spite of a 
very strong current got across to the island. No 
sooner had they landed when some Spaniards rushed 
out of the bushes, with drawn swords. The Indians 
were about to fly in terror, but Aguilar called to them 
in their own language to have no fear. Then he spoke 
to the Spaniards in broken Castilian, saying that he 
was a Christian, fell on his knees and thanked God that 
he had lived to hear his own language again. 

The Spaniards looked at this strange figure in ab- 
solute bewilderment. He was to all appearance an 
Indian. His long hair was braided and wound about 
his head, he had a bow in his hand, a quiver of arrows 
on his back, a bag of woven grass-work hung about his 
neck by a long cord. The pattern of the weaving was 
a series of interwoven crosses. Cortes, giving up hope 
of rescuing any Christian captives, had left the island, 
but one of his ships had sprung a leak and he had put 
back. When he saw an Indian canoe coming he had 
sent scouts to see what it might be. They now led 
Jeronimo Aguilar and his Indian companions into the 
presence of the captain-general and his staff. Aguilar 
saluted Cortes in the Indian fashion, by carrying his 
hand from the ground to his forehead as he knelt 
crouching before him. But Cortes, when he under- 
stood who this man was, raised him to his feet, em- 
braced him and flung about his shoulders his own 
cloak. Aguilar became his interpreter, and thus was 
the prophecy fulfilled concerning the gods of Taxmar. 




'CORTES FLUNG ABOUT HIS SHOULDERS HIS OWN CLOAK." 

— \Page 146 



THE GODS OF TAXMAR 147 



NOTE 

The story of Jeronimo Aguilar follows the actual facts very closely. 
The account of his adventures will be found in Irving's " Life of 
Columbus " and other works dealing with the history of the Spanish 
conquests. 



A LEGEND OF MALINCHE 

O sorcerer Time, turn backward to the shore 
Where it is always morning, and the birds 

Are troubadours of all the hidden lore 
Deeper than any words! 

There lived a maiden once, — O long ago, 
Ere men were grown too wise to understand 

The ancient language that they used to know 
In Quezalcoatl's land. 

Though her own mother sold her for a slave. 
Her own bright beauty as her only dower, 

Into her slender hands the conqueror gave 
A more than queenly power. 

Between her people and the enemy — 

The fierce proud Spaniard on his conquest bent' 
Interpreter and interceder, she 

In safety came and went. 

And still among the wild shy forest folk 
The birds are singing of her, and her name 
Lives in that language that her people spoke 
Before the Spaniard came. 

She is not dead, the daughter of the Sun, — 

By love and loyalty divinely stirred, 
She lives forever — so the legends run, — 

Returning as a bird. 

Who but a white bird in her seaward flight 
Saw, borne upon the shoulders of the sea, 

Three tiny caravels — how small and light 
To hold a world in fee ! 



148 



A LEGEND OF MALINCHE 149 

Who but the quezal, when the Spaniards came 
And plundered all the white imperial town, 

Saw in a storm of red rapacious flame 
The Aztec throne go down! 

And when the very rivers talked of gold, 
The humming-bird upon her lichened nest 

Strange tales of wild adventure never told 
Hid in her tiny breast. 

The mountain eagle, circling with the stars, 

Watched the great Admiral swiftly come and go 

In his light ship that set at naught the bars 
Wrought by a giant foe. 

Dull are our years and hard to understand. 

We dream no more of mighty days to he, 
And we have lost through delving in the land 

The wisdom of the sea. 

Yet where beyond the sea the sunset burns, 
And the trees talk of kings dead long ago, 

Malinche sings among the giant ferns — 
Ask of the birds — they know! 



XI 

THE THUNDER BIRDS 

GLORY is all very well," said Juan de Saavedra 
to Pedro de Alvarado as the sqadron left the 
island of Cozumel, " but my familiar spirit tells me 
that there is gold somewhere in this barbaric land or 
Cortes would not be with us." 

Alvarado's peculiarly sunny smile shone out. He 
was a ruddy golden-haired man, a type unusual in 
Spaniards, and the natives showed a tendency to revere 
him as the sun-god. Life had treated him very well, 
and he had an abounding good-nature. 

" It will be the better," he said comfortably, " if we 
get both gold and glory. I confess I have had my 
doubts of the gold, for after all, these Indians may 
have more sense than they appear to have." 

" People often do, but in what way, especially? " 

" Amigo, put yourself in the place of one of these 
caciques, with white men bedeviling you for a treasure 
which you never even troubled yourself to pick up 
when it lay about loose. What can be more easy than 
to tell them that there is plenty of it somewhere else — 
in the land of your enemies? That is Pizarro's theory, 
at any rate." 

Saavedra laughed. " Pizarro is wise in his way, 
but as I have said, Cortes is our commander." 

" What has that to do with it? " 

" If you had been at Salamanca in his University 

150 



THE THUNDER BIRDS 151 

days you wouldn't ask. He never got caught in a 
scrape, and he always got what he was after." 

"And kept it?" 

" Is that a little more of Pizarro's wisdom? No; 
he always shared the spoils as even-handedly as you 
please. But if any of us lost our heads and got into 
a pickle he never was concerned in it — or about it." 

" He will lose his, if Velasquez catches him. Re- 
member Balboa." 

" Now there is an example of the chances he will 
take. Cortes first convinces the Governor that nobody 
else is fit to trust with this undertaking. Cordova 
failed; Grijalva failed; Cortes will succeed or leave 
his bones on the field of honor. No sooner are we 
fairly out of harbor than Velasquez tries to whistle us 
back. He might as well blow his trumpets to the sea- 
gulls. All Cortes wanted was a start. You will see 
— either the Governor will die or be recalled while we 
are gone, or we shall come back so covered with gold 
and renown that he will not dare do anything when we 
are again within his reach. Somebody's head may be 
lost in this affair, but it will not be that of Hernan' 
Cortes." 

The man of whom they were speaking just then ap- 
proached, summoning Alvarado to him. Saavedra 
leaned on the rail musing. 

" Sometimes," he said to himself, " one hastens a 
catastrophe by warning people of it, but then, that may 
be because it could not have been prevented. Cortes 
is inclined to make that simple fellow his aide because 
they are so unlike, and so, I suspect, are others. At 
any rate I have done my best to make him see whose 
leadership is safest." 

The fleet was a rather imposing one for those waters. 



152 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

There were eleven ships altogether, the flagship and 
three others being over seventy tons' weight, the rest 
caravels and open brigantines. These were manned 
by one hundred and ten sailors, and carried five hun- 
dred and fifty-three soldiers, of whom thirty-two were 
crossbowmen and thirteen arquebusiers. There were 
also about two hundred Indians. Sixteen horses ac- 
companied the expedition, and it had ten heavy cannon, 
four light field-guns, called falconets, and a good supply 
of ammunition. The horses cost almost more than the 
ships that carried them, for they had been brought 
from Spain; but their value in such an undertaking was 
great. 

Hernando Cortes had come out to Cuba when he 
was nineteen, and that was fifteen years ago. Much 
had been reported concerning an emperor in a country 
to the west, who ruled over a vast territory inhabited 
by copper-colored people rich in gold, who worshiped 
idols. Cortes had observed that Indian tribes, like 
schoolboys, were apt to divide into little cliques and 
quarreling factions. If the subject tribes did not like 
the Emperor, and were jealous of him and of each 
other, a foreign conqueror had one tool ready to his 
hand, and it was a tool that Cortes had used many 
times before. 

The people of this coast, however, were not at ail 
like the gentle and childlike natives Colon had found. 
From the rescued captive Aguilar, the commander 
learned much of their nature and customs. On his 
first attempt to land, his troops encountered troops of 
warriors in brilliant feathered head-bands and body 
armor of quilted white cotton. They used as weapons 
the lance, bow and arrows, club, and a curious staff 
about three and a half feet long set with crosswise 



THE THUNDER BIRDS 153 

knife-blades of obsidian. Against poisoned arrows, 
such as the invaders had more than once met, neither 
arquebus nor cannon was of much use, and body armor 
was no great' protection, since a scratch on hand or 
leg would kill a man in a few hours. After some 
skirmishing and more diplomacy, at various points 
along the coast, Cortes landed his force on the island 
which Grijalva had named San Juan de Ulloa, from a 
mistaken notion that Oloa, the native salutation, was 
the name of the place. The natives had watched the 
" water-houses," as they called them, sailing over the 
serene blue waters, and this tribe, being peaceable folk, 
sent a pirogue over to the island with gifts. There 
were not only fruits and flowers, but little golden orna- 
ments, and the Spanish commander sent some trinkets 
in return. In endeavoring to talk with them Cortes 
became aware of an unusual piece of luck, Aguilar 
did not understand the language of these folk. But 
at Tabasco, where Cortes had had a fight with the 
native army, some slaves had been presented to him as 
a peace-offering. Among them was a beautiful young 
girl, daughter of a Mexican chief, who after her fa- 
ther's death had been sold as a slave by her own mother, 
who wished to get her inheritance. During her cap- 
tivity she had learned the dialect Aguilar spoke, and 
the two interpreters between them succeeded in trans- 
lating Cortes's Castilian into the Aztec of Mexico from 
the first. The young girl was later baptized Marina. 
There being no " r " in the Aztec language the people 
called her Malintzin or Malinche, — Lady Marina, the 
ending " tzin " being a title of respect. She learned 
CastiHan with wonderful quickness, and was of great 
service not only to Cortes but to her own people, since 
she could explain whatever he did not understand. 



154 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Cortes learned that the name of the ruler of the 
country was Moteczuma. His capital was on the 
plateau about seventy miles in the interior. This 
coast province, which he had lately conquered, was 
ruled by one of his Aztec governors. Gold was abun- 
dant. Moteczuma had great store of it. Cortes de- 
cided to pitch his camp where afterward stood the cap- 
ital of New Spain. 

The friendly Indians brought stakes and mats and 
helped to build huts, native fashion. From all the 
country round the people flocked to see the strange 
white men, bringing fruit, flowers, game, Indian corn, 
vegetables and native ornaments of all sorts. Some 
of these they gave away and some they bartered. 
Every soldier and mariner turned trader; the place 
looked like a great fair. 

On Easter Day the Aztec governor arrived upon a 
visit of ceremony. Cortes received him in his own 
tent, with all courtesy, in the presence of his officers, all 
in full uniform. Mass was said, and the Aztec chief 
and his attendants listened with grave politeness. Then 
the guests were invited to a dinner at which various 
Spanish dishes, wines and sweetmeats were served as 
formally as at court. After this the interpreters were 
summoned for the real business of the day. 

The Aztec nobleman wished to know whence and 
why the strangers had come to this country. Cortes 
answered that he was the subject of a monarch beyond 
seas, as powerful as Moteczuma, who had heard of 
the Aztec Emperor and sent his compliments and some 
gifts. The governor gracefully expressed his wiUing- 
ness to convey both to his royal master. Cortes 
courteously declined, saying that he must himself de- 
liver them. At this the governor seemed surprised 



THE THUNDER BIRDS 155 

and displeased; evidently this was not in his plan. 
" You have been here only two days," he said, " and 
already demand an audience with the Emperor?" 
Then he expressed his astonishment at learning that 
there was any other monarch as great as Moteczuma, 
and sent his attendants to bring a few gifts which he 
himself had chosen for the white chief. 

These tributes consisted of ten loads, each as much 
as a man could carry, of fine cotton stuff, mantles of 
exquisite feather-work, and a woven basket full of gold 
ornaments. Cortes expressed his admiration and ap- 
preciation of the gifts, and sent for those he had 
brought for Moteczuma. They consisted of an arm- 
chair, richly carved and painted, a crimson cloth cap 
with a gold medal bearing the device of San Jorge and 
the dragon, and some collars, bracelets and other orna- 
ments of cut glass. To the Aztec, who had never seen 
glass, these appeared wonderful. He ventured the re- 
mark that a gilt helmet worn by one of the Spanish 
soldiers was like the casque of their god Quetzalcoatl, 
and he wished that Moteczuma could see it. Cortes 
immediately sent for the helmet and handed it to the 
chief, with the suggestion that he should like to have 
it returned full of the gold of the country in order to 
compare it with the gold of Spain. Spaniards, he 
said, were subject to a complaint affecting the heart, 
for which gold was a remedy. This was not entirely 
an invention of the commander's fertile brain. Many 
physicians of those days did regard gold as a valuable 
drug; but only Cortes ever thought of making use of 
the theory to get the gold. 

During this polite and interesting conversation 
Cortes observed certain attendants busily making 
sketches of all that they saw, and on inquiry was told 



156 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

that this " picture-writing " would give the Emperor 
a far better idea of the appearance of the strangers 
than words alone. Upon this the Spanish general or- 
dered out the cavalry and artillery and put them 
through their evolutions on the beach. The cannon, 
whose balls splintered great trees, and the horsemen, 
whose movements the Aztecs followed with even more 
terror than those of the gunners, made a tremendous 
impression. The artists, though scared, stuck to their 
duty, and the strange and terrible beasts, and the 
thunder-birds whose mouths breathed destruction, 
were drawn for the Emperor to see. After this the 
governor, assuring Cortes that he should have what- 
ever he needed in the way of provisions until further 
orders were received from the Emperor, made his 
adieux and went home. 

Then began a diplomatic game between Cortes and 
the Emperor and the various chiefs of the country. 
The couriers of the imperial government, who traveled 
in relays, could take a message to the capital and re- 
turn in seven or eight days. In due time two ambas- 
sadors arrived from Moteczuma, with gifts evidently 
meant to impress the strangers with his wealth and 
power. The embassy was accompanied by the gov- 
ernor of the province and about a hundred slaves. 
Some of these attendants carried burning censers from 
which arose clouds of incense; others unrolled upon 
the ground fine mats on which to place the presents. 

Nothing like this had ever been offered to a Spanish 
conqueror, even by Moors, to say nothing of Indians. 
There were two collars of gold set with precious 
stones; a hundred ounces of gold ore just as it came 
from the mines; a large alligator's-head of gold; six 
shields covered with gold; helmets and necklaces of 



THE THUNDER BIRDS 157 

gold. There were birds made of green feathers, the 
feet, beaks and eyes of gold; a box of feather-work 
upon leather, set with a gold plate weighing seventy 
ounces; pieces of cloth curiously woven with feathers, 
and others woven in various designs. Most gorgeous 
of all were two great plates as big as carriage wheels, 
one of gold and one of silver, wrought with various 
devices of plants and animals rather like the figures of 
the zodiac. The wildest tales of the most imaginative 
adventurer never pictured such magnificence. If 
Moteczuma's plan had been to induce the strangers to 
respect his wishes and go home without visiting his 
capital, it was a complete failure. After this proof 
of the wealth and splendor of the country Cortes had 
no more idea of leaving it than a hound has of aban- 
doning a fresh trail. When the envoys gave him 
Moteczuma's message of regret that it would not be 
possible for them to meet, Cortes replied that he could 
not think of going back to Spain now. The road to 
the capital might be perilous, but what was that to 
him? Would they not take to the Emperor these 
slight additional tokens of the regard and respect of 
the Spanish ruler, and explain to him how impossible 
it would be for Cortes to face his own sovereign, with 
the great object of his voyage unfulfilled? There was 
nothing for the embassy to do but to take the message. 
While waiting for results, Cortes received a visit 
from some Indian chiefs of the Totonacs, a tribe lately 
conquered by the Aztecs. Their ruler, it seemed, had 
heard of the white cacique and would like to receive 
him in his capital. Cortes gave them presents and 
promised to come. In the meantime his own men 
were quarreling, and both parties were threatening 
him. The bolder spirits announced that if he did not 



158 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

make a settlement in the country, with or without in- 
structions from the governor of Cuba who had sent 
him out, they would report him to the King. The 
friends of Velazquez accused Cortes of secretly en- 
couraging this rebellion, and demanded that as he had 
now made his discovery, he should return to Cuba and 
report. 

Cortes calmly answered that he was quite willing to 
return at once, and ordered the ships made ready. 
This caused such a storm of wrath and disappointment 
that even those who had urged it quailed. Seeing that 
the time was ripe, the captain-general called his fol- 
lowers together and made a speech. He declared that 
nobody could have the interests of the sovereigns and 
the glory of the Spanish race more at heart than he 
had. He was willing to do whatever was best. If 
they, his comrades, desired to return to Cuba he would 
go directly. But if they were ready to join him, he 
would found a colony in the name of the sovereigns, 
with all proper officers to govern it, to remain in this 
rich country and trade with the people. In that case, 
however, he would of course have to resign his com- 
mission as captain-general of an expedition of discov- 
ery. 

There was a roar of approval from the army at 
this alluring suggestion. Before most of them fairly 
knew what they were about they had voted to form a 
colony under the royal authority, elected Cortes gov- 
ernor as soon as he resigned his former position, and 
seen the new governor appoint a council in proper form, 
to aid in the government. 

" I knew it," said Saavedra to himself as he went 
back, alone, to his quarters. " Just as people have 
made up their minds they have got him between the 



THE THUNDER BIRDS 159 

door and the jamb, he is somewhere else. When he 
resigned his commission he slipped out from under the 
government of Cuba, and that has no authority over 
him. He has appointed a council made up of his own 
friends, and now he can hang every one of the Vel- 
asquez party if they make any trouble. But they 
won't." 

They did not. Cortes sent his flagship to Spain 
with some of his especial friends and some of his par- 
ticular enemies on board, the enemies to get them out 
of his way, the friends to defend him to the King 
against their accusations. He founded a city which he 
named Villa Rica de Vera Cruz, the Rich 1 o\*n of the 
True Cross. Then, as the next step toward the in- 
vasion of the country, he proceeded to play Indian 
politics. 

First he accepted the invitation of the chief of the 
Totonacs, and Moteczuma, hearing of it, sent the tax- 
gatherers to collect tribute and also to demand twenty 
young men and women to sacrifice to the gods as an 
atonement for having entertained the strangers. 
Cortes expressed lively horror, and advised the chief 
of the Totonacs to throw the tax-gatherers into prison. 
Then he secretly rescued them and telling them how 
deeply he regretted their misfortunes as innocent men 
doing their duty to their ruler, he sent them on board 
his own ships for safe-keeping. When the Emperor 
heard what had happened he was enraged against the 
Totonacs. If they wished to escape his vengeance 
now their only chance was to become allies of Cortes. 

Thus within a few days after landing, the com- 
mander had got all of his own followers and a power- 
ful native tribe so bound up with his fortunes that they 
could not desert him without endangering their own 



i6o DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

skins. He now suggested to two of the pilots that 
they should report five of the ships to be in an unsea- 
worthy condition from the borings of the teredos — 
in those days sheathing for hulls had not been invented, 
and the ship-worm was a constant danger, in tropical 
waters especially. At the pilots' report Cortes ap- 
peared astonished, but saying that there was nothing to 
do but make the best of it, ordered the ships to be 
dismantled, the cordage, sails and everything that 
could be of use brought on shore, and the stripped 
hulls scuttled and sunk. Then four more were con- 
demned, leaving but one small ship. 

There was nearly a riot in the army, marooned in 
an unknown and unfriendly land. Cortes made an- 
other speech. He pointed out the fact that if they 
were successful in the expedition to the capital they 
would not need the ships; if they were not, what good 
would the ships do them when they were seventy 
leagues inland? Those who dared not take the risk 
with him could still return to Cuba In the one ship that 
was left. " They can tell there," he added In a tone 
which cut the deeper for being so very quiet, " how 
they deserted their commander and their friends, and 
patiently wait until we return with the spoils of the 
Aztecs." 

An Instant of breathless silence followed, then some- 
body shouted. A hundred voices took up the cry, — 

" To Mexico ! To Mexico ! " 

Of the adventures, the fighting, the wonderful 
sights and the narrow escapes of the march to the 
capital, Bernal Diaz, who was with the army, wrote 
afterward In bulky volumes. On the seventh day of 
November, 15 19, the compact little force of Spaniards, 
little more than a battalion in all, with their Indian 



THE THUNDER BIRDS i6i 

allies from the provinces which had rebelled against 
the Emperor, came in sight of the capital. The mo- 
ment at which Cortes, at the head of his followers, 
rode into the city of Mexico is one of the most dra- 
matic in all history. Nothing in any novel of ad- 
venture compares with it in amazing contrast or tragic 
possibihties. The men of the Age of Cannon met the 
men of the Age of Stone. The mighty Catholic 
Church confronted a nation of snake-worshiping can- 
nibals. The sons of a race that lived in hardy sim- 
plicity, a race of fighters, had come into a capital where 
life was more luxurious than it was in Seville, Paris 
or Rome — a heathen capital rich in beauty, wealth 
and all the arts of a barbarian people. 

The city had been built on an island in the middle 
of a salt lake, reached by three causeways of masonry 
four or five miles long and twenty or thirty feet wide. 
At the end near the city each causeway had a wooden 
drawbridge. There were paved streets and water- 
ways. The houses, built around large court-yards, 
were of red stone, sometimes covered with white stucco. 
The roofs were encircled with battlements and de- 
fended with towers. Often they were gardens of 
growing flowers. In the center of the city was the 
temple enclosure, surrounded by an eight-foot stone 
wall. Within this were a score of teocallis, or pyra- 
mids flattened at the top, the largest, that of the war- 
god, being about a hundred feet high. Stone stairs 
wound four times around the pyramid, so that religious 
processions appeared and disappeared on their way to 
the top. On the summit was a block of jasper, rounded 
at top, the altar of human sacrifice. Near by were the 
shrines and altars of the gods. Outside the temple 
enclosure was a huge altar, or embankment, called the 



i62 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

tzompantli, one hundred and fifty-four feet long, upon 
which the skulls of innumerable victims were arranged. 
The doorways and walls everywhere were carved with 
the two symbols of the Aztec religon — the cross and 
the snake. Among the birds in the huge aviary of the 
royal establishment were the humming-birds which were 
sacred to one of the most cruel of the gods, and in 
cages built for them were the rattlesnakes also held 
sacred. Flowers were everywhere — in garlands hung 
about the city, in the hands of the people, on floating 
islands in the water, in the gardens blazing with color. 

The Spanish strangers were housed in a great stone 
palace and entertained no less magnificently than the 
gifts of the Emperor had led them to expect. The 
houses were ceiled with cedar and tapestried with fine 
cotton or feather work. Moteczuma's table service 
was of gold and silver and fine earthenware. The peo- 
ple wore cotton garments, often dyed vivid scarlet with 
cochineal, the men wearing loose cloaks and fringed 
sashes, the women, long robes. Fur capes and feather- 
work mantles and tunics were worn in cold weather; 
sandals and white cotton hoods protected feet and 
head. The women sometime used a deep violet hair- 
dye. Ear-rings, nose-rings, finger-rings, bracelets, 
anklets and necklaces were of gold and silver. 

Moteczuma himself, a tall slender man about forty 
years old, came to meet them in a palanquin shining 
with gold and canopied with feather-work. As he de- 
scended from it his attendants laid cotton mats upon 
the ground that he might not soil his feet. He wore 
the broad girdle and square cloak of cotton cloth which 
other men wore, but of the finest weave. His sandals 
had soles of pure gold. Both cloak and sandals were 
embroidered with pearls, emeralds, and a kind of stone 




MOTECZUMA AWAITED THEM IN THE COURTYARD." 



-Page 163 



THE THUNDER BIRDS 163 

much prized by the Aztecs, the chalchlvitl, green and 
white. On his head he wore a plumed head-dress of 
green, the royal color. When Cortes with his staff 
approached the building set apart for their quarters, 
Moteczuma awaited them in the courtyard. From a 
vase of flowers held by an attendant he took a massive 
gold collar, in which the shell of a certain crawfish was 
set in gold and connected by golden links. Eight 
golden ornaments a span long, wrought to represent 
the same shell-fish, hung from this chain. Moteczuma 
hung the necklace about the neck of Cortes with a 
graceful little speech of welcome. 

The Aztec Emperor was making the best of a situa- 
tion which he did not like at all. In other Mexican 
cities Cortes had ordered the idols cast headlong down 
the steps of the teocalli, the temples cleansed, and a 
crucifix wreathed in flowers to be set up in place of the 
red altar stained with human blood. He was attended 
by some seven thousand native allies from tribes con- 
sidered by the Aztecs as wild barbarians. His daring 
behavior and military successes had all been reported 
to Moteczuma by the picture-writing of his scribes. 
There was a tradition among the Aztecs that some day 
white bearded strangers would come, destroy the wor- 
ship of the old gods of blood and terror, and restore 
the worship of the fair god Quetzalcoatl. Before the 
white men landed there had been earthquakes, meteors 
and other omens. Would the old gods destroy the 
invaders and all who joined them, or was this the great 
change which the prophets foretold? Who could 
say? 

In the beautiful, terrible city Cortes moved alert and 
silent, courteous to all, every nerve as sensitive to new 
impressions as a leaf to the wind. He knew that 



i64 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

strong as the priesthood of the fierce gods undoubtedly 
was, there was surely an undercurrent of rebellion 
against their cruelty and their unlimited power. In 
a fruitless attempt to keep the Spaniards out of the 
city by the aid of the gods, three hundred little children 
had been sacrificed. If Cortes failed to conquer, by 
peaceful means or otherwise, nothing was more cer- 
tain than that he and all of his followers not killed in 
the fighting would be butchered on the top of those 
terrible pyramids sooner or later. Yet he looked about 
him and said, under his breath, 

" This is the most beautiful city in the world." 
" And you think we shall win it for the Cross and 
the King? " asked Saavedra in the same quiet tone. 

" We must win," said Cortes, with a spark in his eyes 
like the flame in the heart of a black opal. " There is 
nothing else to do." 

NOTE 

In the spelling of the Aztec Emperor's name Cortes' own form is 
used, — "Moteczuma," instead of the commoner "Montezuma." One 
must read Prescott's " Conquest of Mexico " for even an approximately 
adequate account of this extraordinary campaign. 



MOCCASIN FLOWER 

Klooskap's children, the last and least, 
Bidden to dance at his farewell feast, 
Under the great moon's wizard light, 
Over the mountain's drifted white, 
The Winag'mesuk, the wood-folk small. 
Came to the feasting the last of all! 

Magic snowshoes they wore that night, 
Woven of frostwork and sunset light, 
Round and trim like the Master's own, — 
Their lances of reed, with a point of bone, 
Their oval shields of the woven grass, 
Their leader the mighty Kaktugwaas. 

The Winag'mesuk, the forest folk, 

They fled from the words that the white man spoke. 

They were so tired, they were so small. 

They hardly could find their way back at all. 

Yet bravely they rallied with shield and lance 

To dance for Klooskap their Snowshoe Dance! 

Light and swift as the whirling snow 

They leaped and fluttered aloft, alow. 

Silent as owls in the white moonlight 

They pounced and grappled in mimic fight. 

When they chanted to Klooskap their last farewell 

He laid on the forest a fairy spell. 

From Little Thunder, from Kaktugwaas, 
He took the buckler of woven grass. 
The lance of reed with a point of bone, 
The rounded footgear like his own, 
And bade them grow there under the pines 
While the snowdrifts melt and the sunlight shines! 
165 



1 66 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

The sagamore pines are dark and tall 
That guard the Norumbega wall. 
When the clear brooks dance to the flute of spring, 
And veery and catbird of Klooskap sing, 
The Winag'mesuk for one short hour 
Come back for their token of Klooskap's power — 
Moccasin Flower! 



XII 

GIFTS FROM NORUMBEGA 

WHAT shall I bring thee then, from the world's 
end, Reine Margot?" asked Alain Maclou. 
The small girl in the deep fireside recess of a Picardy 
castle-hall considered it gravely. 

" There should be three gifts," she said at last, " for 
so it always is in Mere Bastlenne's stories. I will have 
the shoes of silence, the girdle of fortune, and dia- 
monds from Norumbega. Tell me again about Nor- 
umbega." 

" Nay, little one, I must go, to see after the lading 
of the ship. Fare thee well for this time," and the 
young man bent his tall head above the hand of his 
seven-year-old lady. The graceful, quick-witted and 
imaginative child had been his pet and he her loyal 
servant these three years. It was understood between 
them that she was really the Queen of France, barred 
from her throne by the Salic Law that forbade any 
woman to rule that country in her own right. Some 
day he was to discover for her a kingdom beyond 
seas, in which she alone should reign. Of all the tales, 
marvelous, fanciful or tragic, which he or her old 
nurse had told her, she liked best the legend of Nor- 
umbega, the city in the wilderness which no explorer 
had ever found. Wherever French, Breton or Eng- 
lish fishermen had become at all familiar with the 
Indians they heard of a city great and populous, with 
walls of stone, ruled by a king richer than any of their 

167 



i68 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

chiefs, but no two stories agreed on the location. 
Some had heard that it was an island, west of Cape 
Breton; others that it was on the bank of a great 
river to the southward. Maclou bad seen at a fair 
one of the Indians brought to France ten years before 
in the Dauphine, and spoken to him. According to 
this Indian the chief town of his people was on an 
island in the mouth of a river where high gray walls 
of rock arose, longer and statelier than the walls of 
Dieppe. In describing these walls the Indian did 
not indeed say that they encircled the city, but no 
Frenchman could have imagined rock palisades built 
for any other purpose. On the other hand Maclou 
knew a pilot who had been caught in a storm and 
blown down the coast southwest from the fisheries, 
and he and his crew had seen, from ten or twelve 
leagues out at sea, white and shining battlements on 
the crest of a mountain far inland. When they asked 
their Indian guides what city it was the slaves trembled 
and showed fear, and declared that none of their peo- 
ple ever went there. Had only one man seen the glit- 
tering walls it might have been a vision, but they had 
all seen. 

If Norumbega really existed, the expedition of 
Jacques Cartier in 1535 seemed likely to find it. He 
had made a voyage the year before with two ships and 
a hundred and twenty men, of whom Maclou had been 
one. Not being prepared to remain through the 
winter, they had been obliged to turn back before they 
had done more than discover a magnificent bay which 
Cartier named the Bay of Chaleur on account of the 
July heat, and a squarish body of water west of Cape 
Breton which seemed to be marked out on their map 
as the Square Gulf. Now the veteran of Saint Malo 
had instructions to explore this gulf and see whether 



GIFTS FROM NORUMBEGA 169 

any strait existed beyond it which might lead to Cathay. 
On general principles he was to find out how great and 
of what nature the country was. The maps of the 
New World were fairly complete in their outline of 
the southern continent and islands discovered by Spain; 
it was hoped that this expedition might give an equally 
definite outline to the northern coast. Cartier had on 
his previous voyage caught two young Indians who had 
come from far inland to fish, and brought them back to 
France. They had since learned enough Breton to 
make themselves understood, and from what they said 
it seemed to Cartier that there might be a far greater 
land west of the fisheries than the mapmakers had 
supposed. The King, on the other hand, was inclined 
to hope that the lands already found were islands, 
among which might be the coveted route to Cathay. 
Maclou bent his brows over the map and pondered. 
If Norumbega were found it would be the key to the 
situation, for the people of a great inland city would 
know, as the people of Mexico did, all about their 
country. Did it exist, or was it a fairy tale, born of 
mirage or a lying brain? 

On Whitsunday the sixteenth of May, Cartier and 
his men went in solemn procession to the Cathedral 
Church of Saint Malo, confessed themselves, received 
the sacrament, and were blessed by the Bishop in his 
robes of state, standing in the choir of the ancient 
sanctuary. On the following Wednesday they set sail 
with three ships and one hundred and ten men. Car- 
tier had been careful to explain to the King that it 
would be of no use to send an expedition to those north- 
ern shores unless it could live through the winter on 
its own supplies. The summer was brief, the winter 
severe, and there was no possibility of living on the 



I70 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

country while exploring it. As such voyages went, 
the three ships were well provisioned. Late in July 
they came through the Strait of Belle Isle, and on 
Saint Laurence's Day, August lo, found themselves in 
a small bay which Cartier named for that saint. 
Rounding the western point of a great island the little 
fleet came into a great salt water bay. 

" I believe," said Cartier to Maclou as the flagship 
sailed gaily on over the sunlit sparkling waves, " that 
this must be the place from which all the whales in the 
world come." The great creatures were spouting and 
diving all around the fleet, frolicking like unwieldy 
puppies. Every one was alert for what might be dis- 
covered next. None were more lively and full of 
pleased expectation than the two Indian youths. Cap- 
tives had been taken by the white men before, but none 
had ever returned. Their people were undoubtedly 
mourning them as dead, but would presently see them 
not only alive but fat and happy. They had crossed 
the great waters in the white men's canoe, and lived in 
the white men's villages, and learned their talk. They 
had been christened Pierre and Kadoc, French tongues 
finding it hard to pronounce their former names. 

Cartier called them to him and began to ask ques- 
tions. He learned that the northern coast of the gulf, 
along which they were sailing, was that of a land called 
Saghwenay, in which was found Caignetdaze, called by 
the white men copper. This gulf led to a great river 
called Hochelaga. They had never heard of any one 
going all the way to the head of it, but the old men 
might remember. What the name of the country to 
the south of the gulf was, Cartier could not make out. 
It sounded something like Kanacdajikaouah. " Ka- 
ou-ah " meant great, or large, and Cartier finally set 



GIFTS FROM NORUMBEGA 171 

down the rest of the word as Canada, as nearly as the 
French alphabet could spell out the gutturals. 

The youths in fact belonged to a tribe in the great 
confederacy of the Kanonghsionni, the People of the 
Long House — or rather the lengthened house, Ka- 
nonsa being the word for house, and " ionni " meaning 
lengthened or extended.^ Five tribes, many genera- 
tions ago, had united under the leadership of the great 
Ayonhwatha — " he who made the wampum belt." ^ 
They had adopted weaker tribes when they conquered 
them, exactly as, upon the marriage of a daughter, the 
father built an addition to his house for the newly 
wedded couple. The captives had picked up the Bre- 
ton patois rather easily, but there was nothing in France 
which was at all like an Iroquois bark house, and they 
had to use the Indian word for it. Maclou, who had 
been studying the native language at odd times during 
the voyage, found that it had no b, f, m, or v, and on 
the other hand it had some noises which were not in 
any Breton, French or English words, though the In- 
dian " n " was rather like the French " nque." 

Some fifteen leagues from the salt gulf the water 
became so fresh that Cartier finally gave up the idea 
that the channel he had entered might be a strait. It 
was still very wide, and if it really was a river it was 
the biggest he had ever seen. Three islands now ap- 
peared, opposite the mouth of a swift and deep river 
which came from the northern territory called Sag- 
hwenay. Cartier sailed up this river for some dis- 
tance, finding high steep hills on both sides, and then 
continued up the great river to find the chief city of 
the wilderness empire, if it was an empire. 

No sign had been seen of Norumbega. Presently 
the keen expectant eye of Cartier caught sight of some- 



172 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

thing which went far to shake his faith in that romantic 
citadel. It was a bold headland on the right, which 
would certainly have been chosen by any civilized king 
in Europe as a site for a fortress. Those mighty cliffs 
would almost make other defenses needless. Yet the 
heights were occupied by nothing more than a wooden 
village, which the interpreters called Stadacona, say- 
ing that their chief, Daghnacona, was its ruler. Shouts 
arose from the water's edge as some one among the 
excited Indians recognized on the deck of a great 
winged canoe their own lost countrymen. The inter- 
preters answered with joyous whoops. A dozen canoes 
came paddling out, filled with young warriors, and a 
rapid interchange of guttural Indian talk, went on be- 
tween Pierre and Kadoc and their kinfolk. The en- 
thusiasm rose to a still higher pitch when strings of 
beads of all colors were handed down to the Indians 
in the canoes, and presently Daghnacona himself ap- 
peared to welcome the. white men to his country, with 
dignified Indian eloquence and an escort of twelve 
canoes. This was clearly a good place to stop and 
refit the ships. Cartier took his fleet into a little river 
not far away, and prepared to learn all he could of the 
country before going on. 

The information he got from Daghnacona was not 
encouraging. This was not, it appeared, the chief 
town of the country. That was many miles up the 
river, and was called Hochelaga. It would not be 
safe for the white men to go there. Their ships might 
be caught between ice-floes, and the falling snow would 
blind and bewilder them. Cartier glanced at the blue 
autumn sky and smiled. No one is quicker than an 
Indian to read faces. Daghnacona saw that the white 
chief intended to go, all the same. 



GIFTS FROM NORUMBEGA 173 

Cartier decided to leave the larger ships where they 
were, and proceed up the great river to Hochelaga 
with a forty-ton pinnace, two boats, and about fifty 
men. Early in the morning, before he was quite ready 
to start, a canoie came down stream, in which were 
three weird figures resembling the devils in a medieval 
miracle-play. Their faces were jet black, they were 
clothed in hairy skins, and on their heads were great 
horns. As they passed the ships they kept up a mon- 
otonous and appalling chant, and as their canoe touched 
the beach all three fell upon their faces. Indians, 
rushing out of the woods, dragged them into a thicket, 
and a great hubbub followed, not a word of which was 
understood by the white men, for the Indian interpre- 
ters were there with the rest. Presently the interpre- 
ters appeared on the beach yelling with fright. 

"Pierre! Kadoc! " the annoyed commander 
called from his quarter-deck, " what is all this hulla- 
baloo about?" 

" News ! " gasped Pierre. " News from Canghy- 
enye! He says white men not come to Hochelaga! " 
And Kadoc chimed in eagerly, " Not go! Not go! " 

" Coudouagny?" Cartier repeated to Maclou, com- 
pletely mystified. " Who can that be? " 

Further questioning drew out information which 
sounded as if Coudouagny, o^Canyengye, were a tribal 
god. In reality this was the word for " elder 
brother." In that region it was applied to the Tek- 
arihokens, the eldest of the five nations in the league 
of the Long House. They were afterward dubbed by 
their enemies the Mohawks or man-eaters, and the fear 
for the white men's safety which the interpreters ex- 
pressed may very well have been quite genuine. 

But the Breton captain had not come across the At- 



174 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

lantic to give up his plans for fear of an Indian god, 
if it was a god, and his reply to the warning was to the 
effect that Coudouagny must be a numskull. More 
seriously he explained to the interpreters that although 
he had not himself spoken with the God of his people 
his priests had, and he fully trusted in the power of 
his God to protect him. The party set forth at the 
appointed time. 

In about two weeks they reached the greatest Indian 
town that any of them had ever seen. It was not the 
walled city of the Norumbega legend, but both Maclou 
and Cartier had ceased to expect anything of that kind. 
The Indian guides had said that the town was near, 
and all were dressed in their best. A thousand In- 
dians, men ,women and" children, were on the shore to 
receive them, and the commander at the head of his 
little troop marched into Hochelaga to pay their re- 
spects to the chief. 

The Indian city was inhabited by several thousand 
people, living in wigwams about a hundred and fifty 
feet long by fifty wide, built of bark over a frame of 
wood, and arranged around a large open space. The 
whole was surrounded by a stockade of three rows of 
stakes twelve or fifteen feet high. The middle row 
was set straight, the other two rows five or six feet 
from it and inclining toward it like wigwam-poles. 
The three rows, meeting at the top, were lashed to a 
ridgepole. Half way down and again at the bottom 
cross-braces were fastened diagonally, making a strong 
wall. Around the inside, near the top, was a gallery 
reached by ladders, on which were piles of stones to 
be thrown at invaders. Instead of being square, or 
irregular with many angles and outstanding towers, 
like a French walled town, it was perfectly round. 



GIFTS FROM NORUMBEGA 175 

The Interpreters afterward explained that each of 
the houses was occupied by several families, as the head 
of each house shared his shelter with his kinfolk. 
When a daughter was married she brought her hus- 
band home, as a rule, and her father added an apart- 
ment to his house by the simple device of taking out 
the end wall of bark and building on another section. 
Each household had its own stone hearth, the smoke 
escaping through openings in the roof. A common 
passage-way led through the middle of the house. On 
the sides were rows of bunks covered with furs. 
Weapons hung on the walls, and meat broth or messes 
of corn and beans simmered fragrantly in their 
kettles. Some of these long houses held fifty or sixty 
people each, and there were over fifty of them in all. 
In that climate, with warhke neighbors, the advantage 
of such an organized community over scattered single 
wigwams was very great. All around were cleared 
fields dotted with great yellow pumpkins, where corn 
and beans had grown during the past summer. 

To the sons of Norman and Breton peasants it was 
evident that these fields had not been cultivated for 
centuries, like those of France, any more than the wall 
around Hochelaga was the work of stone-masons toil- 
ing under generations of feudal lords. If this were 
the chief city of these people, they had no Norumbega. 
But it was very picturesque in Its sylvan barbaric way, 
among the limitless forests of scarlet and gold and 
crimson and deep green, which stretched away over the 
mountains. Upon the rude cots in the wigwams as they 
passed, Cartier's men saw rich and glossy furs of the 
silver fox, the beaver, the mink and the marten, which 
princesses might be proud to wear. Curious bead- 
work there was also on the quivers, pouches, moccasins 



176 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

and belts of these wild people, done In white and pur- 
ple shell beads made and polished by hand and not 
more than a quarter of an inch long and an eighth of 
an inch thick. These were sewn in patterns of ani- 
mals, birds, fishes and other things not unlike the em- 
blems of old families in France, Belts of these beads 
were worn by those who seemed to be the chief men 
of Hochelaga. Porcupine quills were also used in em- 
broidery and head-bands. 

The people thronged into the open central space, 
which was about a stone's throw across, some carrying 
their sick, some their children, that the strangers might 
touch them for healing or for good fortune. The old 
chief, who was called Agouhana, was brought in, help- 
less from paralysis, upon a deerskin litter. When Car- 
tier understood that his touch was supposed to have 
some mysterious magic he rubbed the old man's help- 
less limbs with his own hands, read from his service- 
book the first chapter of the Gospel of Saint John and 
other passages, and prayed that the people who lis- 
tened might come to know the true faith. Then, after 
beads, rings, brooches and other little gifts had been 
distributed, the trumpets blew, and the white men took 
their leave. Before they returned to their boats the 
Indians guided them to the top of the hill which rose 
behind the town, from which the surrounding country 
could be seen. Cartier named it Montreal — the 
Royal Mountain. 

It was now the first week in October, and the rapids 
In the river above Hochelaga blocked further explora- 
tion with a sailing vessel. As for going on foot, that 
was out of the question with winter so near. The 
party returned to Stadacona and went into winter 
quarters. While they had been gone their comrades 




CARTIER READ FROM HIS SERVICE-BOOK." 



— Page 176 



GIFTS FROM NORUMBEGA 177 

had built a palisaded fort beside the little river where 
the ships lay moored. They were hardly settled In this 
rude shelter before snow began to fall, and seemed as 
if It would go on forever, softly blanketing the earth 
with layer on layer of cold whiteness. It was waist- 
deep on the level; the river was frozen solid; the drifts 
were above the sides of the ships, and the Ice was four 
inches thick on the bulwarks. The glittering armor 
of the ice Incased masts, spars, ropes, and fringed every 
line of cordage with Icicles of dazzling brightness. 
Never was such cold known in France. Maclou 
thought, whimsically, while his teeth chattered beside 
the fire, of a tale he had once told Marguerite of the 
palace of the Frost King. That fierce monarch, and 
not the guileless Indian chief, was the foe they would 
have to fight for this kingdom. 

Their provisions were those of any ship sent on a 
voyage Into unknown lands in those days — dried and 
salted meat and fish, flour and meal to be made Into 
cakes or porridge, dried pease, dried beans. For a 
time the Indians visited them, in the bitterest weather, 
but in December even this source of a game supply was 
cut ofif, for they came no more. The dreaded scurvy 
broke out, and before long there were hardly a dozen 
of the whole company able to care for the sick. Be- 
sides the general misery they were tormented by the 
fear that If the savages knew how feeble they were the 
camp might be attacked and destroyed. Cartier told 
those who had the strength, to beat with sticks on the 
sides of their bunks, so that prowling Indians might 
believe that the white men were busy at work. 

But the wild folk were both shrewder and more 
friendly than the French believed. Their medicine- 
men told Cartier one day that they cured scurvy by 



178 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

means of a drink made from the leaves and bark of 
an evergreen. Squaws presently came with a birch- 
bark kettle of this brew and It proved to have such 
virtues that the sick were cured of scurvy, and in some 
cases of other diseases which they had had for years. 
Cartler afterward wrote in his report that they boiled 
and drank within a week all the foliage of a tree, which 
the Indians called aneda or tree of life, as large as a 
full-grown oak. ^ Many had died before the remedy 
was learned, and when the weather allowed the fleet to 
sail for home, there were only men enough for two of 
the ships. The Indians had told of other lands where 
gold and rubles were found, of a nation somewhere in 
the interior, white like the French, of people with but 
one leg apiece. But as it was, the country was a great 
country, and well worth the attention of the King of 
France. Leaving the cross and the fleur-de-lis to mark 
the place of their discovery, the expedition sailed for 
France, and on July i6, 1536, anchored once more in 
the port of Saint Malo. 

" And there is no Norumbega really? " asked little 
Margot rather dolefully, when the story of the adven- 
ture had been told. " And your hair is all gray, here, 
on the side." 

" None the less I have gifts for thee, little queen, 
and such as no Queen of France hath in her treasury." 
Maclou's smile, though a trifle grave, had a singular 
charm as he opened his wallet. Margot nestled closer, 
her eyes bright with exicitement. 

The first gift was a little pair of shoes of deer-skin 
dyed green and embroidered with pearly white beads 
on a ground of black and red French brocade. They 
had no heels and no heavy leather soles, and were lined 



GIFTS FROM NORUMBEGA 179 

with soft white fur; and they fitted the little maid's 
foot exactly. 

The second gift was a girdle of the same beads, 
purple and white, in a pattern of queer stiff sprays. 
" That," said Alain Maclou, " is the Tree of Life that 
cured us all of the sickness." 

The third was a cluster of long slender crystals set 
in a fragment of rock the color of a blush rose.^ 

" 'Tis a magic stone, sweetheart. Keep it in the 
sunshine on thy window-ledge, and when summer is 
over 't will be white as snow. Leave it in a snowbank, 
or in a cellar under wet moss, and 't will turn again to 
rose-color. This I have seen. In the winter nights 
the Frost King hangs his ice-diamonds on every twig 
and rope and eave, and when they shine in the red 
sunrise they look like these crystals. And I have seen 
all the sky from the zenith to the horizon at midnight 
full of leaping rose-red flames above such a world of 
ice. 'Tis very beautiful there, Reine Margot, and fit 
kingdom for a fairy queen." 

Marguerite turned the strange quartz rock about 
in her small hands with something like awe. 

" And the shoes are shoes of silence, for an Indian 
can go and come in them so softly that even a rabbit 
does not hear. They were made by a kind old squaw 
who would take no pay, and a young warrior gave me 
the wampum belt, and I found the stone one day while 
I was hunting in the forest, so that all three of thy 
gifts are really gifts from Norumbega." 

"I think — I'm rather glad it is not a real city," 
said Margot with a long breath. " It is more like 
fairyland, just as it is, — and the Frost King and the 
terrible sickness are the two ogres, and the good medi- 



i8o DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

cine man Is a white wizard. It is a very beautiful king- 
dom, Alain, and I think you are the Prince in disguise ! " 

NOTES 

1. Kanonghsionnl was the name which the Iroquois gave themselves. 
It appears that at this time they occupied the country along the St. 
Lawrence held some centuries before by the Ojibways and later, in 
the time of Champlain, by the Hurons. 

2. Hiawatha is generally said to have founded the league of the 
Five Nations. Although these nations were united against any at- 
tack from outside they were not always free from interior enmities 
and dissensions, and the Mohawks in particular were objects of the 
fear and dislike of their neighbors, as the significance of their sobri- 
quet clearly shows. 

3. Aneda is said to be the Iroquois word for spruce. When 
Champlain's men were attacked by scurvy in the same neighborhood 
half a century later, the Iroquois no longer lived there, and this remedy 
was not suggested. 

4. Rose quartz has this property. 



THE MUSTANGS 

Bred to the Game of the World as the Kings and the Emperors 
played it, 
Fate and our masters hurled us over the terrible sea. 
When the sails of the carracks were furled the Game was the 
Game that we made it, — 
We that were horses in Spain were gods in a realm to be! 

Swift at the word we sped, we fought in the front of the 
battle, — 
Ah, but the wild men fled when they heard us neigh from 
afar! 
The field was littered with dead, cut down like slaughtered 
cattle 
— Ah, but the earth is red where the Conquistadores are ! 

Now does the desert wake and croon of hidalgos coming — 
Now for her children's sake she is whetting her sword to 
slay. 
And the armored squadrons break, and our iron-shod hoofs are 
drumming 
On the rocks of the mountain pass — we are free, we are off 
and away! 

Hush — did a man's foot fall in the pasture where we go 
straying? 
Listen — is that the call of a man aware of his right? 
Hearken, my comrades all — once more the Game they are 
playing ! 
Masters, we come, we come, to be one with you in the fight ! 



181 



XIII 

THE WHITE MEDICINE MAN 

CAVALRY without horses, in ships without sailors, 
built by blacksmiths without forges and carpen- 
ters without tools. Now who in Spain will believe 
that?" commented Cabeqa de Vaca. 

It was the evening of the twenty-first of September, 
1528. Five of the oddest looking boats ever launched 
on any sea were drawn up on the shore of La Baya de 
Cavallos, where not a horse was in sight, though there 
had been twoscore a fortnight ago. On the morrow 
the one-eyed commander of the Spaniards, Pamfilo de 
Narvaez, would marshal his ragamuffin expedition into 
those boats, in the hope of reaching Mexico by sea. 

"We shall tell of it when we are grandfathers — 
if the sea does not take us within a week," said Andres 
Dorantes with a sigh. " I think that God does not 
waste miracles on New Spain." 

" Miracles? It is nothing less than a miracle that 
this fleet was built," said Cabega de Vaca valiantly. 
And indeed he had some reason for saying so. 

Narvaez, with a grant from the King which covered 
all the territory between the Atlantic and the Rio de 
los Palmas in Mexico, had staked his entire private 
fortune on this venture. He had landed in Baya de 
Ic Cruz — now Tampa Bay — on the day before Eas- 
ter. The Indians had some gold which they said 
came " from the north." Cabega, who was treasurer 
of the expedition, strongly advised against proceeding 

i8? 



THE WHITE MEDICINE MAN 183 

through a totally unknown country on this very sketchy 
information. But Narvaez consulted the pilot, who 
said he knew of a harbor some distance to the west, 
ordered the ships to meet him there, and with forty 
horsemen and two hundred and sixty men on foot, 
struck boldly into the interior. 

It was an amazing country. It had magnificent for- 
ests and almost impassable swamps, gorgeous tropical 
flowers and black bogs infested with snakes, alligators 
and hostile Indians, game of every kind and dense jun- 
gles into which it retreated. There seemed to be no 
towns, no grain-land and no gold-bearing mountains. 
The persevering explorers crossed half a dozen large 
rivers and many small ones, wading when they could, 
building rafts or swimming when the water was deep. 
After between three and four months of this, half- 
starved, shaken with swamp fever, weary and bedrag- 
gled, they reached the first harbor they had found upon 
the coast they followed, but no ships were there. 
Whether the ships had been wrecked, or put in some- 
where only to meet with destruction at the hands of 
the Indians, they never knew. 

Narvaez called his officers into consultation, one at 
a time, as to the best course to pursue in this desperate 
case. They had no provisions, a third of the men 
were sick and more were dropping from exhaustion 
every day, and all agreed that unless they could get 
away and reach Mexico while some of them could still 
work, there was very little chance that they would ever 
leave the place at all. But they had no tools, no 
workmen and no sailors, and nothing to eat while the 
ships were a-building, even if they knew how to build 
them. They gave it up for that night and prayed for 
direction. 



i84 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Next day one of the men proved to have been a car- 
penter, and another came to Cabeqa de Vaca with a 
plan for making bellows of deerskin with a wooden 
frame and nozzle, so that a forge could be worked 
and whatever spare iron they had could be pounded 
into rude tools. The officers took heart. Cross-bows, 
stirrups, spurs, horse-furniture, reduced to scrap-iron, 
furnished axes, hammers, saws and nails. There was 
plenty of timber in the forests. Those not able to do 
hard work stripped palmetto leaves to use in the place 
of tow for calking and rigging. Every third day one 
of the horses was killed, the meat served out to the 
sick and the working party, the manes and tails saved 
to twist into rope with palmetto fiber, and the skin of 
the legs taken off whole and tanned for water bottles. 
At four different times a selected body of soldiers went 
out to get corn from the Indians, peaceably if possible, 
by force if necessary, and on this, with the horse-meat 
and sometimes fish or sea-food caught in the bay, the 
camp lived and toiled for sixteen desperate days. A 
Greek named Don Theodoro knew how to make pitch 
for the calking, from pine resin. For sails the men 
pieced together their shirts. Not the least wearisome 
part of their labor was stone-hunting, for there were 
almost no stones in the country, and they must have 
anchors. But at last the boats were finished, of 
twenty-two cubits in length, with oars of savin (fir), 
and fifty of the men had died from fever, hardship or 
Indian arrows. Each boat must carry between forty- 
five and fifty of those who remained, and this crowded 
them so that it was impossible to move about, and 
weighted them until the gunwales were hardly a hand's 
breadth above the water. It would have been mad- 
ness to venture out to sea, and they crept along the 



THE WHITE MEDICINE MAN 185 

coast, though they well knew that in following all the 
inlets of that marshy shore the length of the voyage 
would be multiplied several times over. When they 
had been out a week they captured five Indian canoes, 
and with the timbers of these added a few boards to 
the side of each galley. This made it possible to steer 
in something like a direct line toward Mexico. 

On October 30, about the time of vespers, Cabega 
de Vaca, who happened to be in the lead, discovered 
the mouth of what seemed to be an immense river. 
There they anchored among islands. They found that 
the volume of water brought down by this river was 
so great that it freshened the sea-water even three 
miles out. They went up the river a little way to try 
to get fuel to parch their corn, half a handful of raw 
corn being the entire ration for a day. The current 
and a strong north wind, however, drove them back. 
When they sounded, a mile and a half from shore, a 
line of thirty fathoms found no bottom. After this 
Narvaez with three of the boats kept on along the 
shore, but the boat commanded by Castillo and Dor- 
antes, and that of Cabega de Vaca, stood out to sea 
before a fair east wind, rowing and sailing, for four 
days. They never again saw or heard of the remain- 
der of the fleet. 

On November 5 the wind became a gale. All night 
the boats drifted, the men exhausted with toil, hunger 
and cold. Cabeca de Vaca and the shipmaster were 
the only men capable of handling an oar in their boat. 
Near morning they heard the tumbling of waves on 
a beach, and soon after, a tremendous wave struck 
the boat with a force that hurled her up on the beach 
and roused the men who seemed dead, so that they 
crept on hands and knees toward shelter in a ravine. 



i86 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Here some rain-water was found, a fire was made and 
they parched their corn, and here they were found by 
some Indians who brought them food. They still had 
some of their trading stores, from which they pro- 
duced colored beads and hawk-bells. After resting 
and collecting provisions the indomitable Spaniards 
dug their boat out of the sand and made ready to go 
on with the voyage. 

They were but a little way from shore when a great 
wave struck the battered craft, and the cold having 
loosened their grip on the oars the boat was capsized 
and some of the crew drowned. The rest were driven 
ashore a second time and lost literally everything they 
had. Fortunately some live brands were left from 
their fire, and while they huddled about the blaze the 
Indians appeared and offered them hospitality. To 
some of the party this seemed suspicious. Were the 
Indians cannibals? Even when they were warmed and 
fed in a comfortable shelter nobody dared to sleep. 

But the Indians had no treacherous intentions what- 
ever, and continued to share with the shipwrecked un- 
fortunates their own scanty provision. Fever, hun- 
ger and despair, reduced the eighty men who had 
come ashore, to less than twenty. All but Cabega and 
two others who were helpless from fever at last de- 
parted on the desperate adventure of trying to find 
their way overland to Mexico, One of the two left 
behind died and the other ran away in delirium, leav- 
ing Cabeca de Vaca alone, as the slave of the Indians. 

He discovered presently that he was of little use 
to them, for though he could have cut wood or car- 
ried water, this was squaws' work, and should a man 
be seen doing it every tradition of the tribe would be 
upset. He was of no use as a hunter, for he had not 



THE WHITE MEDICINE MAN 187 

the hawk-like sight of an Indian or the Indian instinct 
for following a trail. He could dig out the wild roots 
they ate, which grew among canes and under water, 
but this was laborious and painful work, which made 
his hands bleed. With tools, or even metal with 
which to make them, he might have made himself the 
most useful member of the tribe, but as it was, he was 
even poorer than the wretched people among whom 
he lived, for they knew how to make the most of what 
was in the country, and he had no such training. 

The lonely Spaniard studied their language and cus- 
toms diligently. He found that they made knives and 
arrows of shell, and clothing of woven fibers of grass 
and leaves, and deerskin. They went from one part 
of the country to another according to the food sup- 
ply. In prickly pear time they went Into the cactus 
region to gather the fruit, on which they mainly lived 
during the season. When pinon nuts were ripe they 
went into the mountains and gathered these, threshing 
them out of the cones to be eaten fresh, roasted, or 
ground into flour for cakes baked on flat stones. 
They had no dishes except baskets and gourd-rinds, and 
their houses were tent-poles covered with hides. 
When a squaw wished to roast a piece of meat she 
thrust a sharp stick through it. When she wished to 
boil it she filled a large calabash-rind with water, put 
in it the materials of her stew, and threw stones into 
the fire to heat. When very hot these stones were 
raked out with a loop of twisted green reed or willow- 
shoots and put into the water. When enough had 
been put in to make the water boil, it was kept boil- 
ing by changing the cooled stones for hotter ones un- 
til the meat was cooked. 

Many of the baskets made by the squaws were 



i88 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

curiously decorated, and made of fine reed or fiber 
sewed in coils with very fine grass-thread, so that they 
were both light and strong. There were cone-shaped 
carrying-baskets borne on the back with a loop passed 
around the forehead; in these the squaws carried grain, 
fruit, nuts or occasionally babies. There were bas- 
kets for sifting grain and meal, and a sort of flask 
that would hold water. The materials were gathered 
from mountains, valleys and plains over a range of 
hundreds of miles — grasses here, bark fiber there, 
dyes in another place, maguey leaves in another, and 
for black figures in decoration the seed-pods called 
" cat's claws " or the stems of maiden-hair fern. A 
design was not copied exactly, but each worker made 
the pattern in the same general form and sometimes 
improved on it. There was a banded pattern in a 
diamond-shaped criss-cross almost exactly hke the 
shaded markings on a rattlesnake-skin. The Indians 
believed in a goddess or Snake-Mother, who lived un- 
derground and knew about springs; and as water was 
the most important thing in that land of deserts, they 
showed respect to the Snake-Mother by baskets dec- 
orated in her honor. Another design showed a round 
center with four zigzag lines running to the border. 
This was intended for a lake with four streams flowing 
out of it, widening as they flowed; but it looked rather 
like a cross or a swastika. There was a design in zig- 
zags to represent the lightning, and almost all the pat- 
terns had to do in some way with lakes, rivers, rain, or 
springs. 

As the exile of Spain began to know the country he 
sometimes ventured on journeys alone, without the 
tribe, to the north, away from the coast. In these 
wanderings he met with tribes whose language was not 



THE WHITE MEDICINE MAN 189 

wholly strange, but whose customs and occupations 
were not exactly like those of his own Indians. Once 
he found a village of deerskin tents where the warriors 
were painting themselves with red clay, for a dance. 
He remembered that the squaws, when he came away 
some days before, were in great lamentation because 
they had no red paint for their baskets. He took out 
a handful of shells and found that these Indians were 
only too pleased to pay for them in red earth, deer- 
skin, and tassels of deer ^lair dyed red. They would 
hardly let him go till he promised to come again and 
bring them more shells and shell beads. This sug- 
gested to him a way in which he might make himself 
of use and value. 

Longer and longer journeys he took, trading shells 
for new dyes, flint arrow-heads, strong basket-reeds, 
and hides and furs of all sorts, learning more and more 
of the country as he trafficked. Once he found fami- 
lies living in a house built of stone and mud bricks, in 
the crevice of a cliff, getting water from a little brook 
at the base of it, and raising corn and vegetables along 
the waterside. Their houses had no real doors. 
They had trap-doors in the roof, reached by a notched 
tree-trunk inside and one outside. The corn that grew 
in the little farm at the foot of the cliff was of differ- 
ent colors, red, yellow, blue and white. Each kind was 
put in a separate basket. Each kind of meal was made 
separately into thin cakes cooked on a very hot flat 
stone. A handful of the batter was slapped on with 
the fingers so deftly that though the cake was thin, 
crisp and even, the cook never burned herself. The 
people were always on their guard against roving bands 
of Indians who lived in tipis, or wigwams, and were 
likely to attack the cliff-dwellers at any moment. 



I90 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Cabega de Vaca became interested in these wander- 
ing tribes, and moved north to see what they were like. 
He found them quite ready to trade with liim and ex- 
tremely curious about his wares. They had hides upon 
their tipis of a sort he had not seen before, not smooth, 
but covered with curly brown fur like a big dog's. It 
was some time before the Spanish trader made out 
what sort of animal wore such a skin, though he knew 
at first sight that it must be a very large one. Finally 
the old medicine man with whom he was talking be- 
gan to make sketches on the inside of one of the 
great robes. The Spaniard in his turn made sketches, 
drawing a horse, a goat, a bear, a wolf, a bull. When 
he drew the bull the old Indian got excited. He de- 
clared that that was very like the animal they hunted, 
but that their bulls had great humped shoulders like 
this — he added a high curved line over the back. 
Cabe^a came to the conclusion that it must be some 
sort of hunchbacked cow, but whatever it was, the curly 
furry hide was comforting on cold nights. The old 
Indian told him a few days after that some of the 
young men had just come in with news of a herd of 
these great animals moving along one of their trails, 
and if the white men cared to travel with them he 
could see them for himself. 

It did not take the trader long to make up his mind. 
He went with the Indians at the slow trot which covers 
so many miles in a day, and sooner than they had ex- 
pected, they saw from a little rise in the ground a vast 
herd of slowly moving animals which at first the white 
man took for black cattle. But they were not cattle. 

There was the huge hump with the curly mane, and 
there were the short horns and slender, neat little legs 
which had seemed so out of proportion in the old In- 




"THE CREATURES DARKENED THE PLAIN ALMOST AS FAR 
AS EYE COULD SEE." 

— Page 191 



THE WHITE MEDICINE MAN 191 

dian's sketch. From their point of view they could see 
the hunters cut out one animal and attack him with 
their arrows and lances without arousing the fears of 
the rest. The creatures moved quietly along, grazing 
and pawing now and then, darkening the plain almost 
as far as the eye could see. The trader spent several 
days with the tribe, and when he went south again he 
had a bundle of hides so large that he had to drag it 
on a kind of hurdle made of poles. He had helped the 
Indians decorate some of the hides they had, and when- 
ever he did this he wrote his own name, the date, and 
a few words, somewhere on the skin. 

"Why do you do this?" asked the medicine man, 
putting one long bronze finger on the strange marks. 

" It is a message," said Cabeca de Vaca. " If any 
of my own people see it they will know who made the 
pictures." 

The Indian looked at him thoughtfully. 

" You are very clever," he said. " You ought to be 
a medicine-man." 

This put another idea into the exile's head. He had 
seen much of the medicine-men in his wanderings, and 
had studied their ways. Like most men of his day 
who traveled much, he had a rough-and-ready knowl- 
edge of medicine and surgery. He had sometimes 
been able to be of service to sick and wounded Indians, 
and whether It was their faith In him, or in the vir- 
tues of his treatment, his patients usually got well. In 
comparing notes they found that he often prayed and 
sang in his own language while watching with them. 
In the end he gained a great reputation as a sort of 
combined priest and doctor. He was not too proud to 
adopt some of the methods of the medicine-men when 
he found them effective, especially as regards herbs 



192 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

and other healing medicaments, used either in poultices 
or drinks. From being a poor slave and a burden to 
his masters, he became their great man. 

He had been for more than five years among the 
Indians when another tribe of Indians met with his 
tribe, perhaps drawn by the fame of the white medi- 
cine-man, and among their captives he recognized with 
joy three of his own comrades — Castillo, Dorantes, 
and a Barbary negro called Estevanico (Little Ste- 
phen). He told them of his experience, and found 
them glad to have him teach them whatever of the arts 
of the medicine-man he himself knew. After that, the 
four friends traveled more or less in company, and 
persuaded the Indians to go westward, where they 
thought that there might be a chance of meeting with 
some of their own people. They finally reached a 
point at which the Indians explained that they dared 
not go further, because the tribe which held the coun- 
try further west was hostile. 

" Send to them," suggested Cabega, " and tell them 
we are coming." 

After some argument the Indians sent two women, 
because women would not be harmed even in the ene- 
my's country. Then the four comrades set out into 
the new land. 

Among them they knew six Indian dialects, and 
could talk with the people after a fashion, wherever 
they went. Even when two tribes were at war, they 
made a truce, so that they might trade and talk with 
the strangers. At last Castillo saw on the neck of an 
Indian the buckle of a sword-belt, and fastened to it 
like a pendant the nail of a horse-shoe. His heart 
leaped. He asked the Indian where he got the things. 
The Indian answered, 

" They came from heaven." 



THE WHITE MEDICINE MAN 193 

" Who brought them? " asked Cabega. 

" Men with beards like you," the Indian answered 
rather timidly, "seated on strange animals and carry- 
ing long lances. They killed two of our people with 
those lances, and the rest ran away." 

Then Cabeca knew that his countrymen must have 
passed that way. His feelings were a strange mixture 
of joy and grief. 

As they went on they came upon more traces of 
Spaniards, parties of slave-hunters from the south. 
Everywhere they themselves were well treated, even 
by people who were hiding in the mountains for fear 
of the Christians. When Cabega told the Indians 
that he was himself a Christian they smiled and said 
nothing; but one night he heard them talking among 
themselves, not knowing that he could understand 
their talk. 

" He is lying, or he is mistaken," they said. " He 
and his friends come from the sunrise, and the Chris- 
tians from the sunset; they heal the sick, the Chris- 
tians ki.U the well ones; they wear only a little clothing, 
as we do, the Christians come on horses, with shining 
garments and long lances; these good men take our 
gifts only to help others who need them; the Christians 
come to rob us and never give any one anything." 

The next day Cabeca told the Indians that he wished 
to go back to his own people and tell them not to kill 
and enslave the natives. He explained to them that 
this wickedness was not in any way part of his religion, 
and that the founder of that religion never injured or 
despised the poor, but went about doing good. When 
he was sure that there were Spaniards not many miles 
away, he took Estevanico, leaving the other two Span- 
iards to rest their tired bones, and with an escort of 



194 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

eleven Indians went out to look for his countrymen. 

When he found them, they were greatly astonished. 
Their astonishment did not lessen when he told them 
how he came to be where he was. He sent Estevanico 
back to tell the rest of the party to come, and himself 
remained to talk with Diego de Alcaraz, the leader 
of the Spanish adventurers, and his three followers. 
They were slave-hunters, like the other Spaniards. 
When, five days afterward Estevanico, Castillo and 
Dorantes came on with an escort of several hundred 
Indians, all Cabeca's determina'tion and diplomacy 
were taxed to keep the slaves from making a raid on 
the confiding natives then and there. To buy Alcaraz 
off cost nearly all the bows, pouches, finely dressed 
skins, and other native treasures he had gained by tra- 
ding or received as gifts. In this collection were five 
arrowheads of emerald or something very like that 
stone. It was not in Cabeca de Vaca to break his word 
to people who trusted him. He had suffered every sort 
of privation; he had traveled more than ten thousand 
miles on foot in his six years among the Indians of the 
Southwest; now he had lost most of his profit from 
that long exile; but he went back to Spain with faith 
unbroken and honor clear as a white diamond. 

In May, 1536, he and his companions reached Culia- 
can in the territory of Spain. All the way to the City 
of Mexico they were feasted and welcomed as honored 
guests. The account which Cabega de Vaca wrote of 
his travels was the first written description of the coun- 
try now called Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. 

NOTE 

This story follows closely the " Relacion of Cabeca de Vaca." It 
illustrates the resourcefulness, bravery and ingenuity of Spanish cav- 
aliers of the heroic age as hardly any other episode does. 



LONE BAYOU 

De Soto was a gentleman of Spain 

In those proud years when Spanish chivalry 

From fierce adventure never did refrain, — 
Ruler of argosies that ruled the sea, 

She looked on lesser nations in disdain, 
As born to trafficking or slavery. 

In shining armor, and with shot and steel 
Abundantly purveyed for their delight, 

Banners before whose Cross the foe should kneel, 
His company embarked — how great a light 

Through men's perversity to stoop and reel 
Down through calamity to endless night! 

Yet unsubmissive, obdurately bold. 

The savages refused to serve their need. 

They would not guide the conquerors to their gold, 

Nor though cast in the fire like a weed 
Or driven by stern compulsion to the fold. 

Would they abandon their unhallowed creed. 

The forest folk in terror broke and fled 
Like fish before the fierce pursuing pike. 

The stubborn chiefs as hostages were led — 
And in the wilderness, a grisly dyke 

Of slaves and captives, lay the heathen dead, 
And the black bayou claims all dead alike. 

Then southward through the haunted bearded trees 
The Spaniards fought their way — Mauila's fires 

Devoured their vestments and their chalices. 
Their sacramental wine and bread — the choirs 

No longer sang their requiems, and the seas 
Lay bet\\een them and all their sacred spires. 
195 



196 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

At last in a lone cabin, where the cane 
Hid the black mire before the lowly door, 

De Soto died — although they sought to feign 
By some pretended magic mirror's lore 

That still he lived, a gentleman of Spain, — 
And the dread flood rolled onward to the shore! 



XIV 

THE FACE OF THE TERROR 

PARIS is no place in these times for a Huguenot 
lad from Navarre," said Dominic de Gourgues, 
of Mont-de-Marsan in Gascony. " His father, Fran- 
cois Debre, did me good service in the Spanish Indies. 
One of these days, Philip and his bloodhounds will be 
pulled down by these young terriers they have or- 
phaned." 

" If the Jesuits have their way all Huguenots will b'e 
exterminated, men, women and children," said Laudon- 
niere, with a gleam of melancholy sarcasm in his dark 
pensive eyes. " Life to a Jesuit is quite simple." 

" My faith," said Gascon, twisting his mustache, 
" they may find in that case, that other people can be 
simple too. But I must be off. I thank you for mak- 
ing a place for Pierre." 

In consequence of this conversation, when Ri- 
bault's fleet anchored near the River of May, on June 
25» 1564, Pierre Debre was hanging to the collars of 
two of Laudonniere's deerhounds and gazing in silent 
wonder at the strange and beautiful land. 

" The fairest, fruitfullest and pleasantest land in 
all the world," Jean Ribault had said in his report two 
years before to Coligny the Great Admiral of France. 
Live-oaks and cedars untouched for a thousand years 
were draped in luxuriant grape-vines or wreathed with 
the mossy gray festoons of " old men's beard." Cy- 

197 



198 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

press and pine mingled with the shining foliage of 
magnolia and palm. From the marsh arose on sud- 
den startled wings multitudes of water-fowl. The 
dogs tugged and whined eagerly as if they knew that 
in these vast hunting-forests there was an abundance 
of game. In this rich land, thus far neglected by the 
Spanish conquistadores because it yielded neither gold 
nor silver, surely the Huguenots might find prosperity 
and peace. Coligny was a Huguenot and a powerful 
friend, and if the French Protestants now hunted into 
the mountains or driven to take refuge in England, 
could be transplanted to America, France might be 
spared the horrors of religious civil war. 

Pierre was thirteen and looked at least three years 
older. He could not remember when his people and 
their Huguenot neighbors had not lived in dread of 
prison, exile or death. When he was not more than 
ten years old he had guided their old pastor to safety 
in a mountain cave, and seen men die, singing, for 
their faith. After the death of his father and mother 
he had lived for awhile with his mother's people in 
Navarre, and since they were poor and bread was hard 
to come by he had run away the year before and found 
his way to Paris, where Dominic de Gourgues had 
found him. If the Huguenots had a safe home he 
might be able to repay the kindness of his cousins. 
Meanwhile the country, the wild creatures, the copper- 
colored people and the hard work of landing colonists 
and supplies were full of interest and excitement for j, 

Pierre. 

Satouriona, the Indian chief, showed the French of- 
ficers the pillar which Ribault's party had set up on 
their previous visit to mark their discovery. The 
faithful savages had kept it wreathed with evergreens 



THE FACE jOF THE TERROR 199 

and decked with offerings of maize and fruits as if it 
were an altar. 

Unfortunately not all the colonists were of heroic 
mind. Most who had left France to seek their for- 
tunes were merchants, craftsmen and young Huguenot 
noblemen whose swords were uneasy in time of peace. 
French farm-laborers were mainly serfs on Catholic 
estates, and landowners did not wish to come to the 
New World. Thus the people of the settlement were 
city folk with little experience or inclination for culti- 
vating the soil. The Indians grew tired of supplying 
the wants of so large a number of strangers. Quar- 
rels arose among the French. A discontented group 
of adventurers mutinied and went off on a wild at- 
tempt at piracy. They plundered two ships in the 
Spanish Indies and were caught by the Spanish gover- 
nor. The twenty-six who escaped his clutches fled 
back to the fort, which Laudonniere had built and 
named Carolina. His faithful lieutenant La Caille ar- 
rested them and dragged them to judgment. *' Say 
what you will," said one of the culprits ruefully, " if 
Laudonniere does not hang us I will never call him an 
honest man." The four leaders were promptly sen- 
tenced to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted 
to shooting. After that order reigned, for a time. 

Some of the tradesmen ranged the wilderness, bring- 
ing back feather mantles, arrows tipped with gold, 
curiously wrought quivers of beautiful fur, wedges of 
a green stone like beryl. There were reports of a 
gold mine somewhere in the northern mountains. Ri- 
bault did not return with the expected supplies, the 
Indians had mostly left the neighborhood, and misery 
and starvation followed, for the game, like the Indians 
fled the presence of the white men. The Governor 



200 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

began to think of crowding the survivors into the two 
little ships he had and returning to France. 

Matters were in this unsatisfactory state when Cap- 
tain John Hawkins in his great seven-hundred-ton ship 
the Jesus, with three smaller ones, the Solomon, the 
Ti0er and the Swallow, put in at the River of May for 
a supply of fresh water. He gave them provisions, 
and offered readily to take them back to France on 
his way to England, but this offer Laudonni^re de- 
clined. 

" Monsieur Hawkins is a good fellow," he observed 
dryly to La Caille, " and I am grateful to him, but that 
is no reason why I should abandon this land to his 
Queen, and that is what he is hoping that I may do." 

Others were not so long-sighted. The soldiers and 
hired workmen raised a howl of wrath and disappoint- 
ment when they heard that they were not to sail with 
Hawkins, and openly threatened to desert and sail 
without leave. Laudonniere answered this threat by 
the cool statement that he had bought one of the Eng- 
lish ships, the Ti^er, with provisions for the voyage, 
and that if they would have a little patience they might 
soon sail for France in their own fleet. Somewhat 
taken aback they ceased their clamor and awaited a 
favoring wind. Before it came, Ribault came sailing 
back with seven ships, plenty of supplies, and three 
hundred new colonists. 

The fleet approached as cautiously as if it were com- 
ing to attack the colony instead of relieving it, and 
Laudonniere, who saw many of his friends among the 
new arrivals, presently learned that his enemies among 
the colonists had written to Coligny describing him as 
arrogant and cruel and charging that he was about to 
set up an independent monarchy of his own. The Ad- 



THE FACE OF THE TERROR 201 

miral, three thousand miles away, had decided to ask 
the Governor to resign. Ribault advised him to stay 
and fight it out, but Laudonniere was sick and disheart- 
ened. Life was certainly far from simple when to 
use authority was to be accused of treason, and not to 
use it was to foster piracy, and he had had enough of 
governing colonies in remote jungles of the New 
World. He was going home. 

To most of the colonists, however, Ribault's arrival 
promised an end of all their troubles. Stores were 
landed, tents were pitched, and the women and chil- 
dren were bestowed in the most comfortable quarters 
which could be found for them just then. To his 
great satisfaction Pierre found among the arrivals his 
cousin Barbe and her husband, a carpenter, and her 
three children, Marie, Suzanne and little Rene. The 
two young girls regarded Cousin Pierre as a hero, es- 
pecially when they learned that the bearskin on the 
floor of their palmetto hut had but a few months ago 
been the coat of a live black bear. It had been caught 
feasting in the maize-fields of the Indians, by their 
cousin and another youth, and shot with a crossbow 
bolt by Pierre. They thought the roast corn and 
stewed clams of their first meal ashore the most de- 
licious food they had ever tasted, and the three-cor- 
nered enclosure in the forest with the wilderness all 
about it, the most wonderful place they had seen. 

Little did these innocent folk imagine what was 
brewing in Spain. The raid of French pirates upon 
the Jamaican coast had promptly been reported by the 
Adelantado of that island. Spanish spies at the 
French court had carefully noted the movements of 
Coligny and Ribault. Pedro Menendez de Avila, 
raising money and men in his native province of As- 



202 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

turia in Spain for the conquest of all Florida, learned 
with horror and indignation that its virgin soil had al- 
ready been polluted by heretic Frenchmen. 

Menendez had in that very year gained permission 
from the King of Spain to conquer and convert this 
land at his own cost. In return he was to have free 
trade with the whole Spanish empire, and the title of 
Adelantado or governor of Florida for life — abso- 
lute power over all of America north of Mexico, for 
Spain had never recognized any right of France or 
England in the region discovered by Cabot, Cartier, 
Verrazzano or others. Menendez was allowed three 
years for his tremendous task. He was to take with 
him five hundred men and as many slaves, a suitable 
supply of horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and provisions, 
and sixteen priests, four of whom were to be Jesuits. 
He had also to find ships to convey this great expedi- 
tion. 

But Menendez had been playing for big stakes all 
his life. He was only ten years old when he ran away 
and went to sea on a Barbary pirate ship. While yet 
a lad he was captain of a ship of his own, fighting pi- 
rates and French privateers. He had served in the 
West Indies and he had commanded fleets. King 
Philip had never really understood the enormous pos- 
sibilities of Florida until Menendez explained them to 
him. The soil was fertile, the climate good, there 
might be valuable mines, and there were above all 
countless heathen whom it was the deepest desire of 
Menendez to convert to the true faith. In this last 
statement he was as sincere as he was in the others. 
He expected to do in Florida what Cortes had done in 
Mexico. Now heresy, the unpardonable sin, burned 
out and stamped out in Spain, had appeared in the 



THE FACE OF THE TERROR 203 

province which he had bound himself at the cost of a 
milhon ducats to make Spanish and CathoHc. With 
furious energy he pushed on the work of preparation. 

He had assembled in June, 1565, a fleet of thirty- 
four ships and a force of twenty-six hundred men. 
Arciniega, another commander, was to join him with 
fifteen hundred. On June 29 he sailed from Cadiz in 
the San Pelayo, a galleon of nearly a thousand tons, 
a leviathan for those days. Ten other ships accom- 
panied him; the rest of the fleet would follow later. 
It was the plan of Menendez to wipe out the garrison at 
Fort Caroline before Ribault could get there, plant a 
colony there and one on the Chesapeake, to control the 
northern fisheries for Spain alone. On the way a 
Caribbean tempest scattered the ships and only five met 
at Hispaniola, but Menendez did not wait for the 
rest. When he reached the Florida coast he sent a 
captain ashore with twenty men to find out exactly 
where on that long, lonely shore line the French col- 
ony had squatted. 

About half past eleven on the night of September 4, 
the watchman on one of the French ships anchored off 
shore saw the huge San Pelayo, the Spanish banner 
lifting sluggishly in the slow wind, coming up from the 
south. Ribault was in the fort, so were most of the 
troops, and three of the ships were anchored inside 
the bar. The strange fleet came steadily nearer, the 
great flagship moved to windward of Ribault's flag- 
ship the Trinity, and dropped anchor. The others 
did likewise. Not a word was spoken by friend or 
foe. The Spanish chaplain Mendoza afterward 
wrote : 

" Never since I came into the world did I know such 
a stillness." 



204 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

A trumpet sounded on the San Pelayo. A trumpet 
sounded on the Trinity. Menendez spoke, pohtely. 

"Gentlemen, whence does this fleet come?" 

" From France." 

" What is it doing here? " 

" Bringing soldiers and supplies to a fort of the 
King of France in this country — where he soon will 
have many more," flung back the Breton captain de- 
fiantly. 

" Are you Catholics or Lutherans? " 

This time a score of clear voices reinforced 
the Captain's — " Lutherans — Huguenots — the Re- 
formed Faith — The Religion ! " And the Captain 
added, "Who are you yourself?" 

" I am Pedro Menendez de Avila, General of the 
fleet of the King of Spain, Don Felipe the Second, who 
come hither to hang and behead ail Lutherans whom 
I find by land or sea, according to instructions from 
his Majesty, which leave me no discretion. These 
commands I shall obey, as you will presently see. At 
daybreak I shall board your ships. If I find there any 
Catholic he shall be well treated. But every heretic 
shall die." 

The reply to the rolling sonorous ultimatum was a 
shout of derision. 

" Ah, if you are a brave man, don't put it off till 
daylight! Come on now and see what you will get! " 

Menendez in black fury snapped out a command. 
Cables were slipped, and the towering black hulk of 
the San Pelayo bore down toward the Trinity. But 
the Breton captain was already leading the little fleet 
out of danger, and with all sail set, went out to sea, 
answering the Spanish fire with tart promptness. In 
the morning Menendez gave up the chase and came 




'GENTLEMEN, WHENCE DOES THIS FLEET COME?'" 

— Page 204 



THE FACE OF THE TERROR 205 

back to find armed men drawn up on the beach, and all 
the guns of the ships inside the bar pointed in his di- 
rection. He steered southward and found three ships 
already unloading in a harbor which he named San 
Augustin and proceeded to fortify. 

In Fort Caroline, Pierre Debre, awakened by the 
sound of firing, ran down to the beach, where a crowd 
was gathering. No one could see anything but the 
flashes of the guns; who or what was attacking the 
ships there was no way of knowing. The first light of 
dawn showed the two fleets far out at sea, and Ribault 
at once ordered the drums to beat " To arms ! " They 
saw the great galleon approach, hover about awhile, 
and bear away south. When the French fleet came 
back later, one of the captains, Cosette, reported that 
trusting in the speed of his ship he had followed the 
Spaniards to the harbor where they were now landing 
and entrenching themselves. 

The terror which haunted the futur'e of every 
Huguenot in France now menaced the New World. 

Ribault gave his counsel for an immediate attack by 
sea, before Menendez completed his defense or received 
reinforcements. Laudonniere was ill in bed. The 
fleet sailed as soon as it could be made ready, and with 
it nearly every able fighting man in the settlement. 
Pierre, nearly crying with wrath and disappointment, 
was left among the non-combatants at the fort. In 
vain did old Challeux the carpenter try to console him. 
It might be, as Challeux said, that there would be 
plenty of chances to fight after his beard was grown, 
but now he was missing everything. 

That night a terrible storm arose and continued for 
days. The marshes became a boundless sea; the for- 
ests were whipped like weeds in the wind. Where had 



2o6 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

the fleet found refuge? or had it been hurled to destruc- 
tion by the rage of wind and sea? Laudonniere, in 
the driving rain, came from his sick-bed to direct the 
work on the defenses, which were broken down in 
three or four places. Besides the four dog-boys, the 
cook, the brewer, an old cross-bow maker, and the old 
carpenter, there were two shoemakers, a musician, four 
valets, fourscore camp-followers who did not know the 
use of arms, and the crowd of women and children. 
The sole consolation that could be found in their plight 
was that in such a storm no enemy would be likely to 
attack them by sea or land. Nevertheless Laudon- 
niere divided his force into two watches with an of- 
ficer for each, gave them lanterns and an hour glass for 
going the rounds, and himself, weak with fever, spent 
each night in the guard-room. 

On the night of the nineteenth the tempest became 
a deluge. The officer of the night took pity on the 
drenched and gasping sentries and dismissed them. 
But on that night five hundred Spaniards were coming 
from San Augustin through almost impassable swamps, 
their provisions spoiled and their powder soaked, un- 
der the leadership of the pitiless Menendez. The 
storm had caught Ribault's fleet just as it was about to 
attack on the eleventh, and Menendez had determined 
to take a force of Spaniards overland and attack the 
fort while its defenders were away. With twenty 
Vizcayan axemen to clear the way and two Indians and 
a renegade Frenchman, Francois Jean, for a guide, he 
had bullied, threatened and exhorted them through 
eight days of wading through mud waist-deep, creep- 
ing around quagmires and pushing by main force 
through palmetto jungles, until two hours before day- 
light the panting, shivering, sullen men stood cursing 



THE FACE OF THE TERROR 207 

the country and their commander, under their breath, 
in a pine wood less than a mile from Fort Caroline. 
It was all that Menendez could do to get them to go a 
rod further. All night, he said, he had prayed for 
help; their provisions and ammunition were gone; 
there was nothing to do but to go on and take the fort. 
They went on. 

In the faint light of early morning a trumpeter saw 
them racing down the slope toward the fort and blew 
the alarm. " Santiago ! Santiago ! " sounded in the 
ears of the half-awakened French as the Spaniards 
came through the gaps in the defenses and over the 
ramparts. Fierce faces and stabbing pikes were 
everywhere. Laudonniere snatched sword and buck- 
ler, rallied his men to the point of greatest danger, 
fought desperately until there was no more hope, and 
with a single soldier of his guard escaped into the 
woods. Challeux, chisel in hand, on his way to his 
work, swung himself over the palisade and ran like a 
boy. In the edge of the forest he and a few other 
fugitives paused and looked down upon the enclosure 
of the fort. It was a butchery. Some of the Hugue- 
nots in the woods decided to return and surrender 
rather than risk the terrors of the wilderness. The 
Spaniards, they said, were at least men. Six of them 
did return, and were cut down as they came. Pierre 
Debre side by side with a few desperate men who had 
one of the two light cannon the fort possessed, was 
fighting like a tiger in defense of a corner where a 
group of women and children were crouching. 

When Menendez could secure the attention of his 
maddened men he gave an order that women, children 
and boys under fifteen should be spared. This order 
and the instant's pause it gave came just as the last of 



2o8 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

the men in Pierre's corner went down before the hal- 
berds of the Spaniards. Pierre leaped the palisade 
and ran for the forest. Looking back, he saw the 
trembling women and children herded into shelter, but 
not killed. Fifteen of the captured Huguenots were 
presently hanged; a hundred and forty-two had been 
cut down and lay heaped together on the river bank. 
Pierre plunged into the forest and after days of wan- 
dering reached a friendly Indian village. The car- 
penter and the other fugitives who escaped were taken 
to France in the two small ships of Ribaulfs fleet 
which had not gone to attack the Spanish sctibment. 
Menendez returned at leisure to San Augustin, where 
he knelt and thanked the Lord. 

The fate of the men of Ribault's fleet became known 
through the letters which the Spaniards themselves 
wrote in course of time to their friends at home, but 
chiefly through Menendez's own report to the King. 
Dominic de Gourgues heard of it from Coligny, and 
his eyes burned with the still anger of a naturally im- 
petuous man who has learned in stern schools how to 
keep his temper. 

" As I understand it," he said grimly and quietly, 
"Menendez, in the disguise of a sailor, found Ribault 
and his men shipwrecked and starving, some in one 
place, some in another. He promised them food and 
safety on condition that they should surrender and 
give up their arms and armor. He separated them 
into lots of ten, each guarded by twenty Spaniards. 
When each lot had been led out of sight of the rest he 
explained that on account of their great numbers and 
the fewness of his own followers he should be com- 
pelled to tie their hands before taking them into camp, 



THE FACE OF THE TERROR 209 

for fear they might capture the camp. At the end of 
the day, when all had reached a certain line which 
Menendez marked out with his cane in the sand, he 
gave the word to his murderers to butcher them." 

Coligny bowed his noble gray head. 

" And he offered them life if they would renounce 
their religion, whereupon Ribault repeating in French 
the psalm, ' Lord, remember thou me,' they died with- 
out other supplication to God or man. On this ac- 
count did Menendez write above the heads of those 
whom he hanged, ' I do this not as to Frenchmen but 
as to Lutherans.' And no demand for redress has as 
yet been made? " 

" One," said the Admiral coolly. " A demand was 
made by Philip of Spain. He has required his 
brother of France to punish one Gaspe Coligny, some- 
times known as Admiral, for sending out a Huguenot 
colony to settle in Florida." 

The Gascon sprang to his feet muttering something 
between his teeth. " I crave your pardon, my lord," 
he added with a courteous bow. " I am but a plain 
rough soldier unused to the ways of courts, but it seems 
to me that things being as they are, my duty is quite 
simple." He bowed himself out and left Coligny 
wondering. 

During the following months it was noted that in 
choosing the men for his coming expedition Gourgues 
appeared to be unusually select. He sold his inherit- 
ance, borrowed some money of his brother, and fitted 
out three small ships carrying both sails and oars. He 
enlisted, one by one, about a hundred arquebusiers and 
eighty sailors who could fight either by land or sea if 
necessary. Fie secured a commission from the King 



2IO DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

to go slave-raiding in Benin, on the coast of Africa. 
On August 22, 1567, he set sail from the mouth of the 
Charente. 

" I should like to know," said one of the trumpeters, 
Lucas Moreau, "whether we are really going slave- 
catching, or not." 

" Why do you think we are not?" asked the pilot, 
to whom he spoke. 

" Because I have seen nothing on board that looks 
like it. Moreover, he was very particular to ask me 
if I had been in the Spanish Indies, and when he heard 
that I had been in Florida he took me on at once. I 
was out there, you know, when you were, two years 
ago." 

" And you would like to go back? " asked the other, 
gruffly. 

" If there were a chance of killing Menendez, yes," 
answered Moreau with a fierce flash of white teeth. 

The trumpeter's guess was a shrewd one. When 
the tiny fleet reached the West Indies, the commander 
took his men into his confidence and revealed the true 
object of his voyage — to avenge the massacre at Fort 
Caroline. The result proved that he had not mis- 
judged them. Fired by his spirit they became so eager 
that they wanted to push on at once instead of wait- 
ing for moonlight to pass the dangerous Bahama Chan- 
nel. They came through it without mishap, and at 
daybreak were anchored at the mouth of a river about 
fifteen leagues north of Fort Caroline. In the grow- 
ing light an Indian army in war paint and feathers, 
bristling with weapons, could be seen waiting on the 
shore. 

" They may think we are Spaniards," said Dominic 



THE FACE OF THE TERROR 211 

de Gourgucs. *' Moreau, if you think they will under- 
stand you, it might be well for you to speak to them." 

No sooner had the trumpeter come near enough in 
a small boat for the Indians to recognize him, than 
yells of joy were heard, for the war party was headed 
by Satouriona himself, who well remembered him. 
When Moreau explained that the French had returned 
with presents for their good friends there was great 
rejoicing. A council was appointed for the next day. 

In the morning Satouriona's runners had scoured the 
country, and the woods were full of Indians. The 
white men landed in military order, and in token of 
friendliness laid aside their arquebuses, and the Indians 
came in without their bows and arrows. Satouriona 
met Gourgues with every sign of friendliness, and 
seated him at his side upon a wooden stool covered 
with the gray " Spanish moss " that curtained all the 
trees. In the clearing the chiefs and warriors stood 
or sat around them, ring within ring of plumed crests 
fierce faces and watchful eyes. Satouriona described 
the cruelty of the Spaniards, their abuse of the Indians 
and the miseries of their rule, saying finally, 

" A French boy fled to us after the fort was taken, 
and we adopted him. The Spaniards wished to get 
him to kill him, but we would not give him up, for we 
love the French." He waved his hand, and from the 
woods at one side came, in full Indian costume, bronzed 
and athletic, Pierre Debre. 

Greatly as he was surprised and delighted, Gourgues 
dared not show it too plainly, and Pierre had grown 
almost as self-contained as a veteran of twice his years. 
When the French commander suggested fighting the 
Spaniards Satouriona leaped for joy. He and his 



212 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

warriors asked only to be allowed to join In that foray. 

"How soon?" asked Gourgues. Satouriona could 
have his people ready in three days. 

" Be secret," the Gascon cautioned, " for the enemy 
must not feel the wind of the blow." Satouriona as- 
sured him that there was no need of that warning, for 
the Indians hated the Spaniards worse than the French 
did. 

" Pierre," said Gourgues, when he had the lad safe 
on board ship, " they said you were killed." 

" I stayed alive to fight Spaniards," said the boy 
with a flash of the eye. " 'Sieur Dominic, there are 
four hundred of them behind their walls, where they 
rebuilt our fort. I have hidden in the trees and 
counted. But you can trust Satouriona. The Span- 
iards have stolen women, enslaved and tortured men, 
and killed children, and the tribe is mad with hate." 

Twenty sailors were left to guard the ships. Gour- 
gues with a hundred and sixty Frenchmen took up their 
march along the seashore; their Indian allies shpped 
around through the forest. With the French went 
Olotoraca, the nephew of the chief, a young brave of 
distinguished reputation, a French pike in his hand. 
The French met their allies not far from the fort, and 
pounced upon the garrison just as it finished dinner, 
Olotoraca being the first man up the glacis and over 
the unfinished moat. The fort across the river began 
to cannonade the attacking party, who turned four cap- 
tured guns upon them, and then crossed, the French in 
a large boat which had been brought up the river, the 
Indians swimming. Not one Spaniard escaped. Fif- 
teen were kept alive, to be hanged on the very trees 
from which Menendez had hanged his French captives, 



THE FACE OF THE TERROR 213 

and over them was set an Inscription burned with a hot 
poker on a pine board: 

" Not as to Spaniards, but as to Traitors, Robbers, 
and Murderers." 

When not one stone was left upon another In either 
fort, Dominic de Gourgues bade farewell to his Indian 
allies, and taking with him the lad so strangely saved 
from death and exile, went back to France. 

NOTE 

The full history of this dramatic episode is to be found in Park- 
man's "The Pioneers of France in the New World." 



THE DESTROYERS 

The moon herself doth sail the air 

As we do sail the sea, 
Where by Saint Michael's Mount we fare 

Free as the winds are free. 
Our keels are bright with elfin gold 

That mocks the t}Tant's gaze, 
That slips from out his greedy hold 

And leaves him in amaze. 

White water creaming past her prow 

The little Golden Hynde 
Bears westward with her treasure now — 

We'd ship and follow blind, 
But that he never did require — 

Our Captain hath us bound 
Only by force of his desire — 

The quarry hunts the hound! 

The hunt is up, the hunt is up 

To the gray Atlantic's bound, — 
The health of the Queen in a golden cup ! — 

The quarry is hunting the hound ! 
Like steel the stars gleam through the night 

On armored waves beneath, — 
As England's honor cold and bright 

We bear her sword in sheath! 

When that great Empire dies away 

And none recall her place, 
Men shall remember our work to-day 

And tell of our Captain's grace, — 
How never a woman or child was the worse 

Wherever our foe we found, 
Nor their own priests had cause to curse 

The quany that hunted the hound! 
214 



XV 

THE FLEECE OF GOLD 

WHITE fog, the thick mist of windless marshes, 
masked the Kentish coast. The Medway at 
flood-tide from Sheerness to Gillingham Reach was one 
maze of creeks and bends and inlets and tiny bays. 
Nothing was visible an oar's length overside but shift- 
ing cloudy shapes that bulked obscurely in the fog. 
But although this was Francis Drake's first voyage as 
master of his own ship, he knew these waters as he 
knew the palm of his hand. His old captain, dying a 
bachelor, had left him the weather-beaten cargo-ship 
as reward for his " diligence and fidelity", and at six- 
teen he was captain where six years before he had been 
ship's-boy. 

Scores of daring projects went Catherine-wheeling 
through his mind as he steered seaward through the 
white enchanted world. In 1561 Spain was the bogy 
of English seaports, most of whose folk were Protes- 
tants. There was no knowing how long the coast- 
wise trade would be allowed to go on. 

Out of the white mist flashed a whiter face, etched 
with black brows and lashes and a pointed silky beard 
— the face of a man all in black, whose body rose and 
dipped with the waves among the marsh grass of an 
eyot. So lightly was it held that it might have slipped 
oft" in the wake of the boat had not Tom Moone the 
carpenter caught it with a boat-hook. But when they 
had the man on board they found that he was not 
dead. 

215 



2i6 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Ten minutes before, the young captain would have 
said that every dead Spaniard was so much to the good, 
but he had the life-saving instinct of a Newfoundland 
dog. He set about reviving the rescued man without 
thinking twice on the subject. 

" 'T is unlucky," grumbled Will Harvest under his 
breath. " Take a drownded man from the sea and 
she get one of us — some time." 

" Like enough," agreed his master blithely. " But 
this one's not drownded — knocked on the head and 
robbed, I guess. D'you think we might take him to 
Granny Toothacre's, Tom? " 

" I reckon so," returned Tom with a wide grin, 
" seein' 't is you. If I was the one to ask her I'd as 
lief do it with a brass kittle on my head. She don't 
like furriners." 

Drake laughed and brought his craft alongside an 
old wharf near which an ancient farm-house stood, 
half-hidden by a huge pollard willow. Here, when he 
had seen his guest bestowed in a chamber whose one 
window looked out over the marshes, he stayed to 
watch with him that night, sending the ship on to 
Chatham in charge of the mate. 

" Now what's the lad up to? " queried Will as they 
caught the ebbing tide. " D'ye think he'll find out any- 
thing, tending that there Spanisher? " 

" Not him. He don't worm secrets out o' nobody. 
But he's got his reasons, I make no doubt. You go 
teach a duck to swim — and leave Frankie alone," said 
Moone. 

The youth did not analyze the impulse that kept 
him at the bedside of the injured man, but he felt that 
he desired to know more of him. The stranger was 
gaunt, gray and without jewel, gold chain or signet 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 217 

ring to show who he was, but it was the same man who 
had spdken to him at Gravesend five years ago. 

A barge-load of London folk had come down to see 
the launching of the Serchthrift, the new pinnace of 
the Muscovy Company, and among them was the ven- 
erable Sebastian Cabot. Alms were freely distributed 
that the spectators might pray for a fortunate voyage, 
but Frankie Drake was gazing with all his eyes at the 
veteran navigator. A hand was laid on his shoulder, 
and a friendly voice inquired, 

" Did you get yaur share of the plunder, my fon? " 

The lad shook his head a trifle impatiently. ' I be 
no beggar," he answered. " I be a ship's boy." 

" Ay," said the man, " and you seek not the Golden 
Fleece?" 

His eyes laughed, and his long fingers played with 
a strange jewel that glowed like Mars in the midnight 
of his breast. It was of gold enamel, with a splendid 
ruby in the center, and hanging from it a tiny golden 
ram. Could he mean that? But the crowd surged 
between them and left the boy wondering. He had 
never spoken to a Spaniard before. 

As the fluttering pulse grew stronger and the man 
roused from his stupor, disjointed phrases of sinister 
meaning fell from his lips. No names were used, and 
much of his talk was in Spanish, but it suggested a foul 
undercurrent of bribery, falsehood and conspiracy hid- 
den by the bright magnificence of the young Queen's 
court. The queer fact seemed to be that the speaker 
appeared himself to be the victim of some Spanish 
plot. Now why should that be, and he a Spaniard? 

The young captain turned from the window, into 



2i8 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

which through the clearing air the moon was shining, 
to find the stranger looking at him with sane though 
troubled eyes. 

" The Golden Fleece? " he asked in English. 
Drake shook his head. 

" You've had a bad hurt, sir," he said, and briefly 
explained the circumstances. 

" Ah," said the man frowning, and was silent. 

" If you would wish to send any word to your 
friends, — " Drake began, and hesitated. 

" I have no friends here, save my servant Sancho. 
The Golden Fleece will sail on Saint James's Eve for 
Coruna, and he was to meet me at Dover and return 
with me to our own country. In Alcala they know 
what to expect of a Saavedra." 

The last words were spoken with a proud assurance 
that gave the listener a tingling sense of something 
high and indomitable. Saavedra's dark eyes were 
searching his face. 

" I fear I trespass on your kindness," he added 
courteously, " and that I have talked some nonsense 
before I came to myself." 

" Nothing of any account, sir," answered the lad 
quickly. " Mostly it was Spanish — and I don't know 
much o' that. You'll miss your ship if she sails so 
soon, but you're welcome here so long as you like to 
stay." 

" I thank you," said the Spaniard in a relieved tone, 
adding half to himself, " No friends - — but one cannot 
break faith — even with an enemy." 

He dropped asleep almost at once after swallowing 
the cordial which Drake held to his lips. The moon 
came up over the flooded meadows that were all silvery 
lights and black shadow like a fairy realm. The lad 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 219 

had never spent a night like this, even when he had 
seen his master die. 

When the pearl and rose of a July morning over- 
spread the sky he descended, to splash and spatter and 
souse his rough brown head in a bucket of fresh-drawn 
water, and wheedle the old dame into a good humor. 

" What ye hate and fear's bound to come to ye, 
sooner or later," Granny Toothacre grumbled as she 
stirred her savory broth, " My old man said so and I 
never beleft it — here be I at my time o' life harborin' 
a Spanisher." 

" Ah, now, mother," — Drake laid a brown hand 
coaxingly on her old withered one, — " you'll take good 
care of him for me, and we'll share the ransom." 

" Ransom," the old woman muttered, looking after 
the straight, sturdy young figure as it strode down to 
the wharf, " not much hope o' that. Not but what 
he's a grand gentleman," she admitted, turning the con- 
tents of her saucepan into her best porringer. " He 
don't give me a rough word no more than if I was a 
lady." 

Drake spent all his leisure during the next fortnight 
with the Spaniard, whose recovery was slow but steady. 
It was tacitly understood that the less said of the inci- 
dent which had left him stunned and half-drowned the 
better. If those who had sought to kill him knew 
him to be alive, they might try again. 

The young seaman had never known a man like this 
before. In his guest's casual talk of his young days 
one could see as in a mirror the Spain of a half-century 
since, with its audacious daring, its extravagant chivalry 
and its bulldog ferocity. 

" They have outgrown us altogether, these young 
fellows," he said once with his quaint half-melancholy 



220 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

smile. " When the King and Queen rode in armor at 
the head of their troops in Granada, our cavaliers 
dreamed of conquering the world — now it has all 
been conquered." 

" Not England," Drake put in quickly. 

" Not England — I beg your pardon, my friend. 
But we have grown heavy with gold in these days — 
and gold makes cowards." 

" It never made a coward o' me," laughed the lad 
*' Belike it'll never have the chance." 

Through the shadows the old ship's-lantern cast in 
the rude half-timbered room seemed to move the wild 
figures of that marvellous pageant of conquest which 
began in 1492. Saavedra spoke little of himself but 
much of others — Ojeda, Nicuesa, Balboa, Cortes, Al- 
varado, Pizarro. In his soft slow speech they lived 
again, while by the stars outside, unknown uncharted 
realms revealed themselves. This man used words as 
a master mariner would use compass and astrolabe. 

" Those days when we followed Balboa in his quest 
for the South Sea," he ended, " were worth it all. 
Gold is nothing if it blinds a man to the heavens. You 
too, my son, may seek the Golden Fleece in good time. 
May the high planets fortify you ! " 

What room was left for a knight-errant in the Spain 
of to-day, ruling by steel and shot and flame and gold? 
It must be rather awful, the listener reflected, to see 
your own country go rotten like that in a generation. 
Yet there was no bitterness in the old hidalgo's tranquil 
eyes. " I have been a fool," he said smiling, " but 
somehow I do not regret it. The wound from a pois- 
oned arrow can be seared with red-hot iron, but for the 
creeping poison of the soul — the loss of honor — 
there is no cure." 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 221 

When the seamen came to get orders from their 
young captain, Saavedra observed with surprise the 
lad's clear knowledge of his own trade. Francis 
Drake's old master had seen King Henry's shipwrights 
discarding time-honored models to build for speed, 
speed and more speed. He had seen Fletcher of Rye, 
in 1539, prove to all the Channel that a ship could sail 
against the wind. All that he knew he had taught 
his young apprentice, and now the boy was free to use 
it for his own work — whatever that should be. Un- 
like the gilded and perfumed courtiers, these men of 
the sea showed little respect toward the tall ships of 
Spain. Saavedra, pleased that they spoke without re- 
serve in his presence, watched the rugged straightfor- 
ward faces, and wondered. 

The time came when they took him and his stocky, 
silent old servant to board a Vizcayan boat. As they 
caught his last quick smile and farewell gesture Will 
Harvest heaved a rueful sigh. " I never thought to 
be sorrowful at parting with a Don," he said reflec- 
tively, " but I be." 

" God made men afore the Devil made Dons," 
growled Tom Moone. " Yon's a man." 

Drake had gone down the wharf with John Hawk- 
ins of Plymouth, a town that was warmly defiant of 
Spain's armed monopoly of sea-trade. Privateers 
were dodging about the trade-routes where Spanish 
and Portuguese galleons, laden with ingots of gold and 
silver, dyewoods, pearls, spices, silks and priceless mer- 
chandise, moved as menacing sea-castles. Huger and 
huger galleasses were built, masted and timbered with 
mighty trunks from the virgin forests of the Old 
World, four and five feet thick. The military dis- 
cipline of the Continent made a warship a floating bar- 



222 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

rack; the decks of a Spanish man-of-war were packed 
with drilled troops like marching engines of destruc- 
tion, dealing leaden death from arquebus and mus- 
quetoun. The little ships of Cabot, Willoughby and 
William Hawkins had not exceeded fifty, sixty, at most 
a hundred tons; Phihp's leviathans outweighed them 
more than ten to one. What could England do 
against the landing of such an army? An English 
Admiral would be Jack the Giant-Killer with no magic 
at his command. Yet in the face of all this, under the 
very noses of the Spanish patrol, Protestant craftsmen 
were escaping from the Inquisition in the Netherlands 
to England, where Elizabeth had contrived to let it 
be known that they were quite welcome. 

To a perfectly innocent and lawful coasting trade 
Drake and his crew now added this hazardous pas- 
senger service. They were braving imprisonment, tor- 
ture and the stake, for in 1562 no less than twenty-six 
Englishmen were burned alive in Spain, and ten times 
as many lay in prison. Before Drake was twenty all 
Spanish ports were closed to English trade. He sold 
his ship and joined Hawkins in his more or less contra- 
band trade with the West Indies. 

With every year of adventure upon the high seas his 
hatred of the tyranny of Spain deepened and strength- 
ened. Yet though Spanish ferocity might soak the 
world in blood, he would not have his men tainted with 
the evil inheritance of the idolaters. It came to be 
known that El Draque did not kill prisoners. His 
crews fought like demons, but they slew no unarmed 
man, they molested no woman or child. On these 
terms only would he accept allies. Tons of plunder he 
took, but never a helpless life. He landed the shiver- 
ing crews of his prizes on some Spanish island or with 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 223 

a laugh returned to them their empty ships. " A dead 
man's no mortal use to anybody," he would say cheerily, 
and go on using his cock-boats to sink or capture gal- 
leys. At twenty-seven, beholding for the first time 
the shining Pacific, he vowed that with God's help he 
would sail an English ship on that sea. Alone upon 
the platform built in a great tree with steps cut in its 
trunk, to which his negro allies the Maroons had 
guided him, he conceived the sublimely audacious plan 
which he was one day to unfold to Walsingham and the 
Queen. 

The air was thick with rumors of war with Spain 
when Drake arrived in London years later, in the com- 
pany of a new friend, Thomas Doughty, — courtier, 
soldier, scholar, familiar with every shifting under- 
current of European court life. Never at a loss for a 
phrase, ready of wit and quick of understanding, 
Doughty could put into words what the frank-hearted 
young sea-captain had thought and felt and dreamed. 
Both knew the peace with Philip to be only deceptive. 
Walsingham and Leicester were for war; Burleigh for 
peace; between the two the subtle Queen played fast 
and loose with her powerful enemy. 

Drake avowed to Doughty his belief that to strike 
effectively at the gigantic power of Spain, England 
must raid the colonies — not the West Indies alone, 
but the rich western provinces of Peru and Chili. No 
one had been south of Patagonia since its discovery, 
sixty years before. Geographers still held that be- 
yond the Straits of Magellan a huge Antarctic conti- 
nent existed. From that unknown region of darkness 
and tempest came the great heaving ground-swell, the 
tidal wave and the hurricane. Even Spanish pilots 
never used the perilous southern route. Treasure went 



224 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

overland across the Isthmus. Every year an elephan- 
tine treasure-ship sailed from Panama westward 
through the South Sea; and there was a rich trade be- 
tween the American mines and the Orient and the 
Spanish peninsula, by way of the Cape of Good Hope. 
Doughty's imagination was fired by the gorgeous pos- 
sibilities of the idea, and when he became the secretary 
of Christopher Hatton, the Queen's handsome Cap- 
tain of the Guard, he laid the plan before him with all 
the eloquence of his persuasive tongue. Hatton 
finally obtained from Elizabeth a promise to contribute 
a thousand crowns to the cost of an expedition to pene- 
trate the South Seas. This, however, was only on con- 
dition that the affair should be kept secret, above all 
from Burleigh, who was certain to use every effort to 
stop it. She had already, in a private audience with 
Drake, been informed of the main features and even 
the details of the scheme, and had assured him that 
when the time was ripe he should be chosen to avenge 
the long series of injuries which Philip had inflicted 
upon England's honor and her own. 

When in mid-November, 1577, Drake ran out of 
Plymouth with his tiny fleet, he had with him all told 
one hundred and fifty seamen and fourteen boys, en- 
listed for a voyage to Alexandria, although it was 
pretty well known that this was a blind. His flagship, 
the Pelican, afterward re-christened the Golden 
Hynde for Hatton's coat-of-arms, was a hundred-ton 
ship carrying eighteen guns. The Marygold, a 
barque of thirty tons and fifteen guns, and the Swan, 
a provision ship of fifty tons, were commanded by two 
of the gentlemen volunteers, Mr. John Thomas and 
Mr. John Chester. Captain John Wynter com- 
manded the Elizabeth, a new eighty-ton ship, and a 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 225 

fifteen-ton pinnace called the Christopher in honor of 
Hatton, was commanded by Tom Moore. Thomas 
Doughty Avas commander of the land-soldiers, and his 
brother John was enlisted among the gentlemen ad- 
venturers. 

All of Drake's experience and sagacity had gone to 
the fitting out of the ships. There were less than fifty 
men on board besides the regular crews, and among 
them were special artisans, two trained surveyors, 
skilled musicians furnished with excellent instruments, 
and the adventurous sons of some of the best families 
in England. As page the Admiral had his own 
nephew, Jack Drake. There were stores of wild-fire, 
chain-shot, arquebuses, pistols, bows, and other weap- 
ons. The Queen herself had sent packets of perfume 
breathing of rich gardens, and Drake's table furniture 
was of silver gilt, engraved with his arms; even some 
of the cooking utensils were of silver. Nothing was 
spared which became the dignity of England, her Ad- 
miral and her Queen. On calm nights the sea was 
alive with music. And on board the little flagship 
Doughty and Drake talked together as those do whose 
minds answer one another like voices in a roundelay. 

Men who have time and again run their heads into 
the jaws of death are often inclined to fatalism. 
Drake had never expressed it in words, but he had a 
feeling that whatever he was meant to do, God would 
see that he did, so long as he gave himself wholly to 
the work. One evening when the Southern Cross was 
lifting above the darkling sea, and the violins were 
crooning something with a weird burden to it, 
Doughty mused aloud. 

" 'T is the strangest thing in life, that whatever we 
are most averse to, that we are fated to do." 

" Eh? " said Drake with a laugh, looking up from 



226 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Eden's translation of Pigafetts. " Accordin' to that 
you can't even trust yourself. D'you look to see me 
set up an image to be worshiped? " Then he added 
in a lower tone, " That's foolish, Tom. God don't 
shape us to be puppets." 

" That sounds like old Saavedra," was Doughty's 
idle comment. " He had great store of antiquated 
sentiments — like those in the chronicles of the palad- 
ins. I knew his nephew well — a witty fellow, but 
visionary. He laughed at the old cavalero, but he 
was fond of him, and our affections rule us and ruin 
us. A man should have no loves nor hates if he would 
get on at court." 

Sheer surprise kept the other silent for the moment, 
and Doughty went on, — 

" The old man had been in Mexico with Cortes, and 
might have risen to Adelantado in some South Ameri- 
can province if he had not been too scrupulous to join 
Pizarro. He was in London, ten or fifteen years be- 
fore I knew him, and I believe he was the destruction 
of a well-considered Spanish plot for the assassination 
of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth — the assassins 
nearly killed him. He was left for dead and was 
picked up by some sailors." 

" He was in luck." Drake's eyes twinkled. 

" They would have been luckier — if they had let 
the Spanish agents in London know they had him. He 
paid them well of course, but he gave them credit for 
the most exalted motives. All his geese were swans." 

" Maybe they acted out o' pure decency," Drake 
said dryly. 

" My Admiral, this is not Utopia." Doughty! 
stroked his beard with a light complacent hand. 
" Seriously, it is not a kindness to expect of men with- 




"DRAKE WAS SILENT, FINGERING THE SLENDER 
MILANESE PONIARD." 

— Page 227 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 227 

out traditions more than they are capable of doing. 
' E meglio cade dalle fenestre che del tetto.' " (It is 
better to fall from the window than from the roof.) 

Drake was silent, fingering the slender Milanese 
poniard with the blade inlaid with gold and the great 
ruby in the top of the hilt, which lay on the table be- 
tween them. The shipmaster came in just then with 
some question, and the conversation dropped. 

It was not often that Francis Drake attempted to 
analyze the character and behavior of those about him. 
Mostly he judged men by a shrewd instinct; but that 
night he lay long awake, watching the witch-lights upon 
the waves from the dancing lanterns. He was acute 
enough to see that Doughty had hit slyly at him over 
Saavedra's shoulders. Doughty had not liked it that 
Moone should be raised to the rank of captain; he had 
already shown that he regarded himself as second only 
to Drake in command, and the champion of the gen- 
tlemen as distinct from the mariners. The second 
officer of every English ship was a practical shipmas- 
ter whose authority held in all matters concerning navi- 
gation. The soldiers and their officers were passen- 
gers. This was unavoidable in view of the new method 
of English sea-fighting, which depended quite as much 
on the skill of the seamen as on the armed and trained 
soldier. English gunners could give the foe a broad- 
side and slip away before their huge adversary could 
turn. Drake now had two factions to deal with, and 
he bent his brows and set his jaw as he pondered the 
situation. If discord arose, the gentlemen would have 
to come to order. There was no room here for old 
ideas of caste. Any man too good to haul on a rope 
might go to — Spain. 

Doughty had a way of taking it for granted that 



228 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Drake and he, as gentlemen, shared thoughts and feel- 
ings not to be comprehended by common men. On 
land this had not seemed offensive, but on blue water, 
with the old sea-chanteys in his ears, in the intimate as- 
sociation of a long voyage, Drake found himself re- 
senting it. What was there about the man that made 
his arguments so plausible when one heard them, so 
false when his engaging presence was withdrawn? 
And yet how devoted, how sympathetic, how witty and 
companionable he could be ! Drake found himself ex- 
cusing his friend as if he were a woman, — laughed, 
sighed, and went to sleep. 

Presently he began to hear of John Doughty's amus- 
ing himself by reading palms and playing on the super- 
stitions of the sailors with strange prophecies, in which 
his brother sometimes joined. Drake summoned the 
two to a brief interview in which Thomas Doughty 
learned that his friend on land, frank, boyish and un- 
assuming, was a different person from the Admiral of 
the Fleet. Yet as this impression faded, the brothers 
perversely went on encouraging discord between the 
gentlemen adventurers and the sailors, and foretelling 
events with sinister aptness. 

It grew colder and colder. It should be summer, — 
but as they crept southward they encountered cold and 
wind beyond that of the North Sea in January. The 
nights grew long; the battering of the gales never 
ceased; the ships lost sight of one another. It was 
whispered that not only had the uncanny brothers fore- 
told the evil weather, but Thomas Doughty had boasted 
of having brought it about. " We'll ha' no luck till 
we get rid of our prophet," said blunt Tom Moone, 
" and the Lord don't provide no whales for the likes 
o' he." 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 229 

Drake warned his comrade with an ominous quiet. 
" Doughty," he said, " if you value your neck you keep 
your reading and writing to what a common man can 
understand — you and your brother. A man can't 
always prophesy for himself, let alone other folk." 

" You heard what he said," commented Wynter 
grimly when the Admiral was in his cabin behind closed 
doors. " Better not raise the devil unless you know 
for sure what he'll do. There's been one gallows 
planted on this coast." 

" Sneck up ! " laughed Doughty, " he would not dare 
hang a gentleman! " but he felt a creeping chill at the 
back of his neck. 

On the desolate island where the stump of Magel- 
lan's gallows stood black against a crimson dawn, they 
landed and the tragedy of estrangement and suspicion 
ended. Thomas Doughty was tried for mutiny and 
treason before a jury of his peers. Every man there 
held him a traitor, yet he was acquitted for lack of evi- 
dence. Thus encouraged, Doughty boldly declared 
that they should all smart for this when Burleigh heard 
of it. What he had done to hinder the voyage, he 
averred, was by Burleigh's orders, for before they 
sailed he had gone to that wily statesman and told him 
the entire scheme. 

In a flash of merciless revelation Drake saw the 
truth. He left Doughty to await the verdict, called 
the companies down to the shore, and there told them 
the story of the expedition from first to last, not over- 
looking the secret orders of the Queen. 

" This man was my friend," he said with a break in 
his voice such as they had not heard save at the suffer- 
ing of a child. " I would not take his life, — but if he 
be worthy of death, I pray you hold up your hands." 



230 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

There was a breathless instant when none stirred; 
then every hand was raised. 

On the next day but one they all sat down to a last 
feast on that bleak and lonely shore; the two comrades 
drank to each other for the last time, shared the sacra- 
ment, and embracing, said their farewells. Doughty 
proved that if he could not live a true man he could die 
like a gentleman; the headsman did his work, and 
Drake pronounced the solemn sentence, "Lo! this is 
the death of traitors! " 

In that black hour the boyish laughter went forever 
from the eyes of the Admiral, and the careless mirth 
from his voice. When after a while young Jack 
Drake, unable to bear the silence that fell between 
them, began some phrase of blundering boyish affec- 
tion, the sentence trailed off into a stammer. 

" He's dead and at peace, Jack," the master said, 
the words dropping wearily, like spent bullets " He 
couldn't help being as he was, — I reckon. If I'd 
known he was like that I could ha' stopped him, but I 
never knew — till too late." 

Discord among the crews continued, until Drake, 
rousing from his fitful melancholy, called them all to- 
gether on a Sunday, and mounted to the place of the 
chaplain. 

" I am going to preach to-day," he said shortly. 
Then he unfolded a paper and began to read it aloud. 

" My masters, I am a very bad orator, for my bring- 
ing up hath not been in learning; but what I 'shall 
speak here let every man take good notice of and let 
him write it down. For I will speak nothing but what 
I will answer it in England, yea, and before Her Maj- 
esty." He reminded them of the great adventure be- 
fore them and went on. 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 231 

" Now by the life of God this mutiny and dissension 
must cease. Here is such controversy between the gen- 
tlemen and the sailors that it doth make me mad to 
hear it. I must have the gentleman to haul with the 
mariner and the mariner with the gentleman. I would 
know him that would refuse to set his hand to a rope 
— but I know there is not any such here. 

" Any who desire to go home may go In the Mary- 
gold, but let them take care that they do go home, for 
if I find them in my way I will sink them." 

Then beginning with Wynter he reduced every of- 
ficer to the ranks forthwith, reprimanded known 
offenders, and wound up with this appeal : 

" We have set by the ears three mighty sovereigns, 
and if this voyage have not success we shall be a scorn- 
ing unto our enemies and a blot on our country forever. 
What triumph would it not be for Spain and Portugal! 
The like of this would never more be tried ! " Then 
he gave every man his former rank and dismissed them. 
Moone, meeting Will Harvest that night by the light 
of a bonfire, was the only man who dared venture a 
comment. " We was spoilin' for a lickin'," he said, 
" and we got it. I do hope and trust we'll keep out o' 
mischief till Frankle gets us home to Plymouth, Hoi'." 
Will grinned back cheerfully, and there was a sub- 
dued laugh from the group about the fire. The fleet 
was itself again. 

Adventure after adventure succeeded, wilder than 
minstrel ever sang. The Marygold went down with 
all hands; Wynter in the Elizabeth, believing the Ad- 
miral lost, turned homeward; the Christopher and the 
Swan had already been broken up. All alone the lit- 
tle Golden Hynde, blown southward, sailed around 
Cape Horn and proved the Antarctic continent a myth. 



232 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

Then Drake steered northward after more than two 
month's tossing on the uncharted seas, to revictual 
his ship in Spanish ports, fill his hold with the rich car- 
goes of one prize ship after another, and capture at 
last the great annual treasure-ship Nuestra Senora de 
la Concepcion, nicknamed the Spitfire because she was 
better armed than most of the ships plying on that 
coast. As they ballasted the Golden Hynde with sil- 
ver from her huge hulk the jesting seamen dubbed her 
the Spit-silver. The little flagship was literally brim- 
ful of silver bars, ingots of gold, pieces of eight, and 
jewels whose value has never been accurately known. 
The Spanish Adelantados, accustomed to trust in their 
remoteness for defense, frantically looked for Drake 
everywhere except where he was. Warships hung 
about the Patagonian coast to catch him on his way 
home — surely he could not stay at sea forever ! 

But Drake had other plans. Navigators were still 
searching for the northern passage, the Straits of 
Anian, and he coasted northward until his men were 
half paralyzed with cold and the creeping chill of the 
fog. From the latitude of Vancouver he turned south 
again, and put into a natural harbor not far from the 
present San Francisco, which he named New Albion be- 
cause of the white cliffs like the chalk downs of Eng- 
land. Here he landed and made camp to refit and re- 
pair his flagship. He had captured on one prize, two 
China pilots in whose possession were all the secret 
charts of the Pacific trade. 

Indians ventured down from the mountains to the 
little fort and dockyard, wondering and admiring. 
Parson Fletcher presently came to the Admiral with 
the extraordinary news that they were worshiping the 
English as gods. Horror and laughter contended 



THE FLEECE OE GOLD 233 

among the Puritans when they found themselves set 
up as idols of the heathen, and the chaplain endeavored 
by signs to teach the simple savages that the God whom 
all men should worship was invisible in the heavens. 

" 'T only shows," remarked Moone, with a nail 
in one corner of his mouth, after vehemently dissuad- 
ing a persistent adorer, " that a man never knows what 
he'll come to. Granny Toothacre used to say that if 
there's a thing you fight against all your life it'll come 
to you sooner or later." 

'' So she did," said Drake with a grim smile as he 
passed. " Takes a woman to tell a fortune, after 
all." 

" D' you ever hear what become of the old Don we 
picked up that time? " Moone asked in a lowered voice. 

" Not since he sent Frankie the dagger with the 
gold work and the jewel. Why?" 

" 'Cause the pilot o' the Spit-silver he knowed un. 
He say the plague broke out in the Low Countries, 
and the old Don took and tended that Gallego servant 
o' his and then he died — not o' the pestilence — just 
wore out like. I reckon maybe he told Mus' Drake. 
I didn't." 

Silence fell. Then Will said thoughtfully, " He 
won't be Mus' Drake much longer — by rights — but 
you never know what a woman'll do. She keep her 
presents and her favors for them that ha'n't earned 
'em — as a rule." 
Moone presently hummed half aloud, 

" When I served my master I got my Sunday pudden, 
When I served the Company I got my bread and cheese. 

When I served the Queen I got hanged for a pirate, 
All along o'saihn' on the Carib Seas!" 



234 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

It was a reckless jest, for every one knew that if 
Elizabeth were dead or married to a Catholic or at 
peace with Spain when they saw England again, it was 
extremely likely that the gallows would be their re- 
ward. But here, at any rate, was one spot not yet 
haunted by the Spanish spectre. 

The Indians, persuaded at last that the white chief 
was not a god, insisted on making him their King. 
They crowned him with a headdress of brilliant feath- 
ers, in all due ceremony, hung a chain of beads about 
his neck, and looked on with the utmost reverence while 
Drake fixed to a large upright post a tablet claiming the 
land for the Queen of England, and a silver sixpence 
with the portrait of Elizabeth and the Tudor rose. 
Securely hidden under the tablet in a hollow of the 
woo(| were memoranda concerning the direction in 
which, according to the Indians, gold was to be found 
in the streams, — plenty of gold. When she was 
ready to the last rope's end the little ship spread her 
wings and sailed straight across the Pacific, round the 
Cape of Good Hope, home to England. 

Battered and scarred but still seaworthy the Golden 
Hynde crept into Plymouth Sound, where Drake heard 
that the plague was in the seaport. Using this for ex- 
cuse not to land until he knew his footing, he anchored 
behind Saint Nicholas Island and sent letters to Court. 

The sea-dogs who patrolled the Narrow Seas in 
Elizabeth's time understood her better than her cour- 
tiers did. To Drake she was still the keen-minded 
woman who, like the jeweled silent birds he had seen 
in tropical jungles, sat in her palace, with enemies all 
about her alert and observant, and ready to seize her 
If she came within their grasp. He knew her way- 
wardness to be half assumed, since to let an enemy 



THE FLEECE OF GOLD 235 

know what he can count on is fatal. He had not much 
doubt of her action, but he must wait for her to give 
him his cue. 

Within a week came her answer. She demurely 
suggested that she should be pleased to see any curi- 
osities which her good Captain had brought home. 
Drake went up to London, and with him a pack train 
laden with the cream of his spoil. The Spanish Am- 
bassador Mendoza came with furious letters from 
Philip demanding the pirate's head. A Spanish force 
landed that very week in Ireland. Burleigh and the 
peace party were desperate. All that Mendoza could 
get out of Elizabeth was an order to Edmund Tre- 
mayne at Plymouth to register the cargo of the Golden 
Hynde and send it up to London that she might see 
how much the pirate had really taken. At the same 
time Drake himself went down with her private letter 
to Tremayne telling him to look another way while 
her captain got his share of the bullion. Meanwhile 
she suggested that Philip call his Spaniards out of 
Ireland. Philip snarled that they were private vol- 
unteers. Elizabeth replied, so was Drake. An in- 
quiry was held, and not a single act of cruelty or de- 
struction of property could be proved against any of 
Drake's crews. The men were richly rewarded by 
their Admiral; the Golden Hynde came up to Dept- 
ford; a list of the plunder was returned to Mendoza; 
and London waited, excited and curious. 

Out of this diplomatic tangle Elizabeth took her 
own way, as she usually did. On April 4, 158 1, she 
suggested to Drake that she would be his guest at a 
banquet on board the little, worm-eaten ship. All the 
court was there, and a multitude of on-lookers besides, 
for those were the days when royalty sometimes dined 



236 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

in public. After the banquet, the like of which, as 
Mendoza wrote his master, had not been seen in Eng- 
land since the time of her father, Elizabeth requested 
Drake to hand her the sword she had given him before 
he left England. " The King of Spain demands the 
head of Captain Drake," she said with a little laugh, 
" and here am I to strike it off." As Drake knelt at 
her command she handed the sword to Marchaumont, 
the envoy of her French suitor, asking that since she 
was a woman and not trained to the use of weapons, 
he should give the accolade. This open defiance of 
Philip thus involved in her action the second Catholic 
power of Europe before all the world. Then, as 
Marchaumont gave the three strokes appointed the 
Queen spoke out clearly, while men thrilled with sud- 
den presage of great days to come, — 
" Rise up, — Sir Francis Drake ! " 



A WATCH-DOG OF ENGLAND 

Where the Russian Bear stirs blindly in the leash of a mailed 

hand, 
Bright in the frozen sunshine, the domes of Moscow stand, 

Scarlet and blue and crimson, blazing across the snow 

As they did in the Days of Terror, three hundred years ago. 

Courtiers bending before him, envoys from near and far. 
Sat in his Hall of Audience Ivan the Terrible Tsar, 

(He of the knout and torture, poison and sword and flame) 
Yet unafraid before him the English envoy came. 

And he was Sir Jeremy Bowes, born of that golden time 
When in the soil of Conquest blossomed the flower of Rhyme. 

Dauntless he fronted the Presence, — and the courtiers whis- 
pered low, 
" Doth Elizabeth send us madmen, to tempt the torture so? " 

" Have you heard of that foolhardy Frenchman ? " Ivan the 

Terrible said, — 
" He came before me covered, — I nailed his hat to his head." 

Then spoke Sir Jeremy Bowes, " I serve the Virgin Queen, — 
Little is she accustomed to vail her face, I ween. 

" She is Elizabeth Tudor, mighty to bless or to ban, 

Nor doth her envoy give over at the bidding of any man ! 

" Call to your Cossacks and hangmen, — do with me what ye 

please, 
But ye shall answer to England when the news flies over seas." 

Ivan smiled on the envoy, — the courtiers saw that smile. 
Glancing one at the other, holding their breath the while. 

Then spoke the terrible Ivan, " His Queen sits over sea. 
Yet he hath bid me defiance, — would ye do as much for me? " 

237 



XVI 

LORDS OF ROANOKE 

PRIMROSE garlands in Coombe Wood shone 
with the pale gold of winter sunshine. Violets 
among dry leaves peered sedately at the pageant of 
spring. In the royal hunting forest of Richmond, 
venerable trees unfolded from their tiny buds canopies 
like the fairy pavilion of Paribanou. 

Philip Armadas and Arthur Barlowe, coming up 
from Kingston, beheld all this April beauty with the 
wistful pleasure of those who bid farewell to a dearly 
beloved land. W^ithin a fortnight Sir Walter Ra- 
legh's two ships, which they commanded, would be out 
upon the gray Atlantic. The Queen would lie at Rich- 
mond this night, and the two young captains had been 
bidden to court that she might see what manner of 
men they were.^ 

Armadas, though born in Hull, was the son of a 
Huguenot refugee. Barlowe was English to the back- 
bone. Both knew more of the ways of ships than the 
ways of courts. Yet for all her magnificence and her 
tempers Elizabeth had a way with her in dealing with 
practical men. She welcomed merchants, builders, 
captains and soldiers as frankly as she did Italian 
scholars or French gallants. Her attention was as 
keen when she was framing a letter to the Grand Turk 
securing trade privileges to London or Bristol, as when 
she listened to the graceful flatteries of Spenser or 
Lyly. In this year 1584 she had granted a patent to 

238 



LORDS OF ROANOKE 239 

Ralegh for further exploratloins of the lands north of 
Florida discovered half a century since by Sebastian 
Cabot. She heaped upon it rights and privileges 
which made Hatton and her other court gallants grind 
their teeth. Ralegh knew well that this was no time 
for him to be wandering about strange coasts. He 
was therefore fitting out an expedition to make a pre- 
liminary voyage and report to him what was found. 

" 'T is like this," Armadas was saying with the 
buoyant confidence which endeared him alike to his 
patron and his comrade. " North you get the scurvy 
and south the fever, but midway is the climate for a 
new empire. There Englishmen may have timber for 
their shipyards, and pasture for their sheep and cattle, 
and meadows for their corn. There Flemings and 
Huguenots may live and work in peace. Our sons may 
be lords and princes of a new world, Arthur lad." 

"Aye; but there's the Inquisition in the Indies to 
reckon with," answered Barlowe with his grim half- 
smile. 'And if what we hear of the barbarians be 
true, the men who make the first plantation may be 
forced to plant and build with their left hand and keep 
their right for fighting." 

" Oh, the barbarians, — " Armadas began, and 
paused, for the chatter of young voices broke forth in 
a copse. 

" I tell thee salvages be hairy men with tails like 
monkeys. My uncle he has seen them on the Guinea 
coast." 

" Dick, if thou keep not off my heels in the passa- 
mezzo — " 

** Be not so cholerical, Tom Poope, or the Master'U 
give thee a tuning. Thou'rt not Lord of the Indies 
yet." 



240 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

" Faith," chuckled Barlowe, " here be some little 
eyasses practising a fantasy for the Queen's pleasure. 
Hey, lads, what's all the pother about? "^ 

The company emerged half-shamefacedly from the 
shrubbery, a group of youngsters between ten and four- 
teen, in fanciful costumes of silk and brocade, or mimic 
armor and puffed doublets. The central figure of the 
group was a handsome little lad in a sort of tunic of 
hairy undressed goatskin, a feather head-dress and 
gilded ornaments. His dark face had a sullen look, 
and he grasped his lance as if about to use it. Another 
urchin, whose great arched eyebrows, rolling eyes and 
impish mouth marked him as the clown of the com- 
pany, made answer boldly, 

" 'T is Tom Poope, your lordships, who mislikes 
the dress he must wear, and says if we have but a king 
and queen of the monkeys to welcome the discoverers, 
the Queen will only laugh at us, and 'a will not stay to 
be laughed at. 'T is a masque of the ventures of Cap- 
tain Cabot, look you, and Tom's the King of the 
salvages and makes all the long speeches." 

" Upon my word, coz," laughed Armadas, " I think 
we have stumbled upon a pretty conceit intended to do 
honor to our master. Methinks His Royal Highness 
here has the right on't — the man who made that 
costume never saw true Indians." 

" Have you seen them, then, sir? Are you a voy- 
ager?" asked Tom Poope eagerly, his face brighten- 
ing. " And will you look on and tell u^ if we do it 
right?" 

Barlowe grinned good-humoredly, and Armadas 
waved a laughing assent. They seated themselves 
upon a grassy bank and the play began. 

Before .half a dozen speeches had been said it was 



LORDS OF ROANOKE 241 

quite clear that the dark-eyed child who played the In- 
dian King was the heart and fire of the piece. They 
were all clever children and well trained, but he alone 
lived his part. His small figure moved with a grace 
and dignity that even his grotesque apparel could not 
spoil. The costumer had evidently built his design 
for the costume of an Indian chief upon legends of wild 
men drawn from the history of Hanno and his gorillas, 
adding whatever absurdities he had gathered from 
sailors of the Gold Coast and the Caribbean Sea. 
Armadas, who had made a voyage to Newfoundland 
and seen the stately figure of a sachem outlined against 
a sunset sky, thought that the boy's Instinct was truer 
than the costumer's tradition. 

" Let me arrange thy habit, lad," he said when the 
first scene ended and the clown began his dance. With 
a few deft touches, ripping down one side of the tunic 
and wreathing a girdle of Ivy and bracken, he changed 
the whole outline of the figure. With the hairy tunic 
draped as a cloak, and the ungainly plumed head-dress 
arranged as a warrior's crest, the character which had 
been almost ridiculous became heroic, as the author of 
the masque evidently had intended. The little King's 
beautiful voice changed like the singing of a Cremona 
violin as he spoke his lines to the white stranger: 

" To this our wild domain we welcome thee 

In honorable hospitality. 

If Thou dost come as the great Lord of Life, 

The Lord of bear and wolf, and stag and fox, 

Leopard and ape, and rabbits of the rocks, 

We are thy children, as our brothers are, — 

The furry folk of forest fastnesses. 

The bright-winged birds that wanton with the breeze, 

The seal that sport amid the sapphire seas. 



242 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

We worship gods of lightning and of thunder, 

Of winds and hissing waves, the rainbow's wonder, 

The fruits and grains, borne by the kindly earth. 

And all the mysteries of death and birth. 

Say who you are, and from what realm you hail, 

White spirits that in winged peraguas sail? 

If ye be angels, tell us of your heaven. 

If ye be men, tell us who is your King." 

It was not a long play, and had been written by a 
court poet especially for the children, of whose acting 
the Queen was fond. There were dances and songs — 
a sailor's contra-dance to the music of a horn pipe, a 
stately passamezzo by the Indian court, a madrigal and 
an ode in compliment to the Queen. ^ Finally the 
leader of the white men planted the banner of Eng- 
land on the little knoll, and in the name of his sover- 
eign received the homage of the Indians. The last 
notes of the final chorus had just died away when 
trumpets called from the Thames, and the scene melted 
into chaos. Off ran the players, cramming costumes 
and properties into their wallets as they went, to see 
the Queen land at the water-gate. Amadas and Bar- 
lowe took the same direction less hurriedly. 

" I wonder now," said Armadas thoughtfully, *' how 
much of prophecy there may have been in that mas- 
carado? Do you know, old lad, we may be taken for 
gods ourselves in two months' time? God grant they 
think us not devils before we are done! " 

" We need have no fear if no Spaniards have landed 
on that coast before us," said Barlowe stolidly. *' If 
they have — no poetical speeches will help our cause." 

The Queen's great gilded barge with its crimson 
hangings came sweeping up the river just as they joined 
the company drawn up to receive her. The tall grace- 



LORDS OF ROANOKE 243 

ful figure of Ralegh was nearest her, and when she set 
her small neat foot upon the stone step it was his hand 
which she accepted to steady her in landing. She was 
a sovereign every inch even in her traveling cloak, but 
when dinner was over, and she took her seat in the 
throne-room, she dazzled the eye with the splendor 
of gold and pearl network over brilliant velvets, the 
glitter of diamonds among the frost-work of Flanders 
lace. Elizabeth knew how to stage the great Court 
drama as well as any Master of the Revels. 

Moreover, what the Queen did, set the fashion for 
all the courtiers, to the profit and prosperity of mer- 
chants and craftsmen. Earls might secretly writhe at 
the prospect of entertaining their sovereign with suit- 
able magnificence, but the tradesmen and purveyors 
rubbed their hands. When a company of Flemings 
was employed for four years on the carving of the 
beams and panels of the Middle Temple Hall, or 
noblemen to be in the fashion built new banquet-rooms 
in the Italian style, with long windows and galleries, 
Enghsh, Flemish and Huguenot builders flocked to the 
kingdom. If she took with one hand she gave with 
the other, and it was not without reason that the com- 
mon folk of England long after she was dead called 
their daughters after " good Queen Bess." 

To Armadas and Barlowe it was a novel and 
splendid pageant. After they were presented to the 
Queen, and expressed their modest thanks for the 
honor of being sent upon her service, they withdrew 
to a window-recess to watch the company. The gen- 
tlemen pensioners in gold-embroidered suits and lace- 
edged ruffs, the dignified councilors in richer if darker 
robes, the maids of honor, bright as damask roses mov- 
ing in the wind, all circled around one pale woman 



244 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

with keen gray-blue eyes that never betrayed her. A 
little apart, speaking now and then to some courtier 
or councilor, stood the Spanish Ambassador in somber 
black and gold, like a watchful spider in a garden of 
rich flowers. Ralegh, careless and debonair, gave him 
a frank salutation as he came to speak to his captains. 

" You may repent of the venture and wish to stay 
at Court," he said smiling. " The Queen thinks well 
of ye." 

" Not I," growled Barlowe, and Armadas laughed, 
" My Lord, do you think so ill of us as to deem us 
weathercocks in the wind?" 

" You must take care to avoid the clutches of the 
Inquisition," Ralegh added, not lowering his voice 
noticeably, yet not speaking loud enough to be heard 
by others. " I have hastened the fitting out of the 
ships and delayed your coming to Court lest Philip's 
ferrets be set on you. The life of Kings and Queens 
is like to a game of chess." 

" Of primero rather, it seems to me," said Armadas, 
" or the game the Spanish call ombre. Chess is brain 
against brain, fair play. In the other one may win the 
game by the fall of the cards — or by cheatery." * 

"A good simile, Philip," said Ralegh, with shining 
eyes. " 'T is all very well to say, as some do, that if 
old King Harry were alive he'd have our English- 
men out of Spanish prisons. But in his day Spain had 
hardly begun her conquests over seas, and the Inquisi- 
tion had not tasted English blood. It was Philip that 
taught our men primero — and the best player is he 
who can bluff, so playing his hand that his enemy 
guesses not the truth. And the stake in this game 
is — Empire." 

Ralegh's head lifted as If he saw visions. In silence 




"IF HE HAD TO WEAR HER FETTERS, THEY SHOULD AT 
LEAST BE GOLDEN." 

—Page 24s 



LORDS OF ROANOKE 245 

the three joined the company now assembling to see 
the masque of the children. Bravely it went, nimbly 
the dancers footed it, sweetly rang the choruses, and 
well did the little chief and captain play their parts. 
At the end the Queen, saying in merry courtesy that 
she could do no less for him who had found her a 
kingdom and him who freely gave it, presented a ring 
set with a carnelian heart to Hal Kempe who played 
Cabot, but about the neck of Tom Poope she hung a 
golden chain, for if he had to wear her fetters, she 
said, they should at least be golden. And so the play 
came to an end, and work began. 

On April 27, with a fair wind, the two ships of 
Ralegh's venture went down to the Channel and out 
upon the western ocean. They had good fortune, for 
not a Spaniard crossed their course. Nine weeks later 
they sighted the coast which the French had once 
called Carolina. Before they were near enough to 
see it well they caught the scent of a wilderness of flow- 
ering vines and trees blown seaward, and as they 
neared the shore they saw tall cedars and goodly cy- 
presses, pines and oaks and many other trees, some of 
them quite unknown to English soil. It is written in 
Armadas's journal that the wild grapes were so abun- 
dant near the sea that sometimes the waves washed 
over them; and the sands were yellow as gold. The 
first time that an arquebus was fired, great flocks of 
birds rose from the trees, screaming all together like 
the shouting of an army, but there seemed to be no 
fierce beasts nor indeed any large animals. 

" With kine, sheep, cattle, and poultry, and such 
herbs and grain as can be brought from England," 
said Armadas, " this land would sure be a paradise on 
earth." 



246 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

" You forget the serpent," returned Barlowe, who 
had been reared by a Puritan grandfather and knew 
his Bible. 

" I am not likely to forget our great enemy while 
the name of Ribault or Coligny remains unforgotten," 
said the other. " All the more reason why this land 
should be kept for the Religion." 

Indeed when they landed they found little in the 
country or the people to recall Adam's doom. They 
set up their English standard upon an island and took 
possession of the domain in the name of Elizabeth of 
England, This island the Indians called Wocoken, 
and the inlet where the ships lay, Ocracoke. They 
went inland as the guests of the native chiefs, and on 
the island of Roanoke they were entertained by the 
people of Wingina the king, most kindly and hospit- 
ably. The sea remained smooth and pleasant and the 
air neither very hot nor very cold, but sweet and whole- 
some. Manteo and Wanchese, two of the Indian war- 
riors, chose to sail away with the white men, and in 
good time the ships returning reached Plymouth har- 
bor, early in September of that year. Manteo was 
made Lord of Roanoke, the first and the last of the 
American Indians to bear an English title to his wild 
estate. The new province was named Virginia, with 
the play upon words favored in that day, for it was a 
virgin country, and its sovereign was the Virgin Queen. 

When the two captains came again to London they 
found the air full of the intriguings of Spain. In that 
year Santa Cruz had organized a plot against the 
Queen's life, discovered almost by chance; in that year 
it became clear that Philip's long chafing against the 
growing sea-power of England and his hatred of such 
rangers as Drake and Hawkins must sooner or later 



LORDS OF ROANOKE 247 

blaze up in war. And by chance also Armadas learned 
how narrow had been their own escape from a Span- 
ish prison. 

He had been the guest of a friend at the acting of 
Master Lyiy's new masque by the Children of the 
Chapel at Gray's Inn. Little Tom Poope sang 
Apelles's song and ruffled it afterward among the ladies 
of the court, as lightly as Essex himself. Amadas 
came out into the dank Thames air humming over the 
dainty verses, — 

" 'At last he staked her all his arrows, 

His mother's doves, and team of sparrows — ' " 

A small hand slid into his own and pulled him 
toward a byway. 

" Why, how is it with thee, Master Poope? Didst 
play thy part bravely, lad." 

" Come," said the boy in a low breathless voice. 
" I have somewhat to tell thee. In here," and he 
drew Armadas toward a doorway. " 'T is my moth- 
er's lodging — there is nothing to fear." 

A woman let them in as if she had been watching 
for them, opened the door into a small plainly fur- 
nished private room and vanished. 

" Art not going on any more voyages to the Vir- 
ginias?" asked the boy, his eager eyes on the Cap- 
tain's face. 

"Not for the present, my boy. Why? Wouldst 
like to sail with us, and learn more of the ways of 
Indian Princes? " 

"Nay, I have no time for fooling — they'll miss 
me," said the youngster impatiently. " The Spanish 
Ambassador has his spies upon thee, and thou must 
leave a false scent for them to smell out. He sent his 
report on thee, eight months ago." 



248 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

" Before we sailed ta Roanoke? *' queried Armadas 
with lifted brows. 

" Before thou went to Richmond that day. His 
Excellency quizzed me after the masque and asked me 
did I know when the ships sailed and whither they 
were bound, believing me to be cozened by his gold. I 
told him they were for Florida to find the fountain of 
youth for the Queen, and would sail on May-day! " 

A grin of pure delight widened the boy's face, and 
he wriggled in gleeful remembrance where he perched, 
on a tall oaken chair. " Oh, they will swallow any 
bait, those gudgeons, and some day their folly will be 
the end of them. I would not have them catch thee 
if they could be fooled, and well did I fool them, I 
tell thee ! " 

" For — heaven's — sake ! " stammered Armadas 
in amazement. " Little friend," he added gently, " it 
seems to me that we owe thee life and honor. But 
why didst do it? " 

" Why? " The boy's fine d'ark brows bent in a 
quick frown. " What a pox right had they to be 
tempting me to be false to the salt that I and they had 
eaten? I hate aU Spaniards. I'd ha' done it any 
way," he added shyly, " for to win our game, but I 
did it for love o' thee because thou took my part about 
the mascarado." 

" I think," said Armadas as he took from his wallet 
a bracelet of Indian shell-work hung with baroque 
pearls, "that all our fine plans would ha' come to 
naught but for thy wise head, young 'un. These be 
pearls from the Virginias, and if you find 'em scorched, 
that's only because the heathen know no other way of 
opening the oyster-shell but by fire. The beads are 
such as they use for money and call roanoke. The 



LORDS OF ROANOKE 249 

gold of the Spanish mines can buy men maybe, but it 
does not buy such loyalty as thine, that's sure. I have 
no gold to give, lad, — but wear this for a love-token. 
And I think that could the truth be known, the Queen 
herself would freely name thee Lord of Roanoke." 

NOTES 

1. The name is variously spelled Armadas, Amidas and Amadas. 
The form here used is that of the earliest records. The same is true 
of the spelling "Ralegh." 

2. Companies of children under various names were often employed 
in the acting of plays in the time of Elizabeth. These are the 
"troops of children, little eyasses " alluded to by Shakespeare in 
" Hamlet." They sometimes acted in plays written for them by 
Lyly and others, and sometimes in the popular dramas of the day. 
Ben Jonson wrote a charming epitaph on Salathiel Pavy, one of these 
little actors, who died at thirteen. 

3. The passamezzo, passy-measure or half-measure was a popular 
Elizabethan dance, like the coranto and lavolta. 

4. Primero, or ombre, is said to be the ancestor of our modern game 
of poker. An interesting account of its origin and variations will be 
found in Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer's " Prophetical, Educational 
and Playing Cards." 



THE CHANGELINGS 

Out on the road to Fairyland where the dreaming children go, 
There's a little inn at the Sign of the Rose, that all the fairies 

know, 
For Titania lodged in that tavern once, and betwixt the night 

and the day 
The children that crowded about her there, she stole their hearts 



away 



Peaseblossom, Moth and Mustardseed, Agate and Airymouse 

too, 
Once were children that laughed and played as children always 

do, 
But when Titania kissed their lips, and crowned them with 

daffodil gold 
They never forgot what she whispered them, they never knew 

how to grow old! 

Mothers that wonder why little lads forget their homely ways, 
And little maids put their dolls aside and take to acting plays. 
Ah, let them be kings and queens awhile, for there's nothing 

sad or mean 
In their innocent thought, and their crowns were wrought by 

the touch o' the Fairy Queen! 

Close to the heart o' the world they come, the children who 
know the way 

To the little low gateway under" the rose, where 't is neither 
night nor day. 

They see what others can never guess, they hear what we can- 
not hear. 

And the loathly dragons that waste our life they never learn 
to fear. 

250 



THE CHANGELINGS 251 

The little inn at the Sign of the Rose, — ah, who can forget the 

place 
Where Titania danced with the children small and lent them 

her elfin grace? 
And wherever they go and whatever they do in the years that 

turn them gray 
They never forget the charm she said when she stole their hearts 



away 



XVII 

THE GARDENS OF HELENE 

IS there not any saint of the kitchen, at all? " asked 
the serious-eyed little demoiselle sorting herbs un- 
der the pear-tree. Old Jacqueline, gathering the tiny 
fagots into her capacious apron, chuckled wisely. 

" There should be, if there isn't. Perhaps the good 
God thinks that the men will take care that there are 
kitchens, without His help." She hobbled briskly into 
the house. Helene sat for a few minutes with hands 
folded, her small nose alert as a rabbit's to the mar- 
velous blend of odors in the hot sunshiny air. 

It was a very agreeable place, that old French gar- 
den. There had been a kitchen-garden on that very 
spot for more than five hundred years; at least, so said 
Monsieur Lescarbot the lawyer, and he knew all about 
the history of the world. A part of the old wall had 
been there in the days of the First Crusade, and the 
rest looked as if it had. When Henry of Navarre 
dined at the Guildhall, before Ivry, they had come 
to Jacqueline for poultry and seasoning. She could 
show you exactly where she gathered the parsley, the 
thyme, the marjoram, the carrots and the onion for 
the stuffing, and from which tree the selected chestnuts 
came. A white hen proudly promenading the yard at 
this moment was the direct descendant of the fowl 
chosen for the King's favorite dish of poulet en cas- 
serole. 

But the common herbs were far from being all thaf 

252 



THE GARDENS OF HELENE 253 

this garden held. Besides the dozen or more herbs 
and as many vegetables which all cooks used, there 
were artichokes, cucumbers, peppers of several kinds, 
marigolds, rhubarb, and even two plants of that curi- 
ous Peruvian vegetable with the golden-centered 
creamy white flowers, called po-te-to. Jacqueline's 
husband, who had been a sea-captain, had brought 
those roots from Brazil, and she, — Helene, — who was 
very little then, had disgraced herself by gathering the 
flowers for a nosegay. It was after that that Jac- 
queline had begun to teach her what each plant was 
good for, and how it must be fed and tended. 
Helene had grown to feel that every plant, shrub or 
seedling was alive and had thoughts. In the delight- 
ful fairy tales that Monsieur Marc Lescarbot told her 
they were ahve, and talked of her when they left their 
places at night and held moonlight dances. 

Lescarbot's thin keen face with the bald forehead 
and humorous eyes appeared now at the grille in the 
green door. He swept off his beret and made a deep 
bow. " Mademoiselle la bien-aimee de la bonne Sainte 
Marthe," he said gravely, " may I come in? " 

He had a new name for her every time he came, 
usually a long one. " But why Sainte Marthe? " she 
asked, running to let him in. 

" She is the patron saint of cooks and housewives, 
petite. A good cook can do anything. Sainte Marthe 
entertained the blessed Lord in her own home, and was 
the first nun of the sisterhood she founded. More- 
over when she was preaching at Aix a fearful dragon 
by the name of Tarasque inhabited the river Rhone, 
and came out each night to devastate the country until 
Sainte Marthe was the means of his — conversion." 

"Oh, go on!" cried Helene, and Lescarbot sat 



254 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

down on the old bench under the pear-tree and began 
to help with the herbs. 

" Sainte Marthe was an excellent cook, and the first 
thing she did when she founded her convent was to 
plant a kitchen-garden. On Saint John's Eve she went 
into the garden and watered each plant with holy 
water, blessing it in the use of God. People came 
from miles around to get roots and seeds from the 
garden and to ask for Sainte Marthe's recipes for 
broths and cordials for the sick. Often they brought 
roots of such plants as rhubarb and — er — marigold, 
which had been imported from heathen countries, to 
be blessed and made wholesome." Lescarbot's eye 
rested on the potato plant, which he distrusted. 

" Well. The dragon prowled around and around 
the convent walls, but of course he could not come in. 
At last he pretended to be sick and sent for Sainte 
Marthe to come and cure him. As soon as she set 
eyes on him she knew what a wicked lie he had told, 
and resolved to punish him for his impudence. Of 
course all he wanted of her was to get her recipes for 
sauces and stews so that he might cook and eat his 
victims without having indigestion — which is what a 
good sauce is for. Sainte Marthe promised to make 
him some broth if he would do no harm while she was 
gone, and just to make sure he kept his promise she 
made him hold out his fore-paws and tied them hard 
and fast with her girdle, while he sat with his fore- 
legs around his — er — knees, and her broomstick 
thrust crosswise between. Then she got out her 
largest kettle and made a good savory broth of all 
the herbs In her garden — there were three hundred 
and sixty-five kinds. She knew that if he drank it all, 
the blessed herbs would work such a change In his 



THE GARDENS OE HELENE 255 

inside that he would be like a lamb forever after. 

" But one thing neither she nor Tarasque had 
thought of, and that was, that the broth was hot. Of 
course he always took his food and drink very cold. 
When he smelled its delicious fragrance he opened his 
mouth wide, and she poured it hissing hot down his 
throat, and it melted him into a famous bubbling 
spring. People go there to be cured of colic." 

Helene drew a long breath. She did not believe 
that Lescarbot had found that story in any book of 
legends of the saints, but she liked it none the worse for 
that. 

" I wonder if Sainte Marthe blessed this garden? " 
she said. 

" I have no doubt she did, and that is why it flour- 
ishes from Easter to Michaelmas. But I came to-day 
for a potato. Sieur de Monts desires to see one and 
to understand the method of its cultivation." 

" Oh, I know that," cried Helene, eagerly, and she 
took one of the queer brown roots from the willow 
basket by the wall. " See, these are its eyes, one, two, 
three — seven eyes in this one. You must cut it in 
pieces, as many pieces as it has eyes, and plant each 
piece sepa rately; and from each eye springs a plant." 

" Ah ! " said Lescarbot gravely, and he put the po- 
tato in his wallet. 

For two years Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, and 
the valiant gentlemen Samuel de Champlain, Bienville 
de Poutrincourt, and others of his company, had been 
striving to maintain a settlement in the grant of La 
Cadie or L'Acadie, between the fortieth and forty- 
sixth degrees of north latitude in the New World, of 
which the King had made De Monts Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral. De Monts engaged Champlain, who had al-- 



256 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

ready explored those coasts, as chief geographer, and 
the merchant Pontgravo was in charge of a store-ship 
laden with supplies. Fearing the severe winter of the 
St, Lawrence, the party steered south along the coast 
and anchored in a tranquil and beautiful harbor sur- 
rounded with forest, green lowlands, and hills laced 
with waterfalls. In his delight with the place Poutrin- 
court declared that he would ask nothing better than 
to make it his home; and he received a grant of the 
harbor, which he named Port Royal. The expedition 
finally came to rest on an island in a river flowing into 
Passamaquoddy Bay, where they began their settle- 
ment. Their wooden buildings — a house for their 
viceroy, one for Champlain and other gentlemen, bar- 
racks, lodgings, workshops and storehouses, — sur- 
rounded a square in the middle of which one fine cedar 
was left standing, while a belt of them remained to 
hedge the island from the north winds. The work 
done, Poutrincourt set sail for France, leaving seventy- 
nine men to spend the winter at He Sainte-Croix. 
Scurvy broke out, and before spring almost half the 
company were in their graves. Spring came, but no 
help from France. It was June i6 before Poutrin- 
court returned with forty men, and two days later 
Champlain set sail in a fifteen-ton barque with De 
Monts and several others, to explore the coast and 
discover if possible a better place for the colony. 
They went as far south as Nauset Harbor, and Cham- 
plain made charts and kept a journal quaintly illus- 
trated with figures drawn and painted; but De Monts 
found no place that suited him. Then he bethought 
himself of the deep sheltered harbor of Port Royal, 
and they removed everything to that new site, on the 
north side of the basin below the mouth of a little 



THE GARDENS OF HELENE 257 

river which they called the Equille. Even parts of the 
buildings were taken across the Bay of Fundy. But 
a ship from France brought news to De Monts that 
enemies at court were working against his Company, 
and leaving Pontgrave in command he and Poutrin- 
court returned home, to see what they could do to 
further the interests of the colony in Paris. Among 
other things Champlain, who had tried without suc- 
cess to make a garden in the sandy soil of the island, 
begged them to provide the settlers with seeds, roots, 
cuttings and implements by which they might raise 
grain and vegetables and other provisions for them- 
selves. This would improve the health and also re- 
duce the expenses of the colony, and the land about the 
new site was well adapted for cultivation. 

Poutrincourt, foregathering with his friend Lescar- 
bot soon after the lawyer had lost nearly all he pos- 
sessed in a suit, recounted to him the woes of the 
colony, and found with pleasure that in spite of the 
doleful history of the last two years Lescarbot was 
eager to seek a new career in New France. 

Helene came running in one morning in the early 
spring of 1606, to find old Jacqueline on the steps of 
the root-cellar with a heap of sprouting potatoes be- 
side her. Lescarbot was packing away in a panier such 
as she gave him, while under the whitening pear-tree a 
donkey stood, sleepily shaking his ears as he waited 
for orders. 

" Oh, what are you doing, Uncle Marc? " she cried. 

" Making ready to go to the land beyond the sun- 
set. Mademoiselle la Princesse du Jardin de Paradis," 
he said smiling. " Sit down while the good mother 
gets the packets of seeds she promised me, and I will 
tell you a story." 



258 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

All curiosity and wonder, the little maid settled 
herself on the ancient worm-eaten bench, and Lescar- 
bot began. 

" It happened one day that men came and told the 
King that a great realm lay beyond the seas, where 
only wild men and animals lived, and that this realm 
was all his. Now the wild men were not good for 
anything, for they had never been taught anything, but 
since, the winters in that country were very cold the 
animals wore fur coats. The King called to him a 
Chief Huntsman and told him that he might go and 
collect tribute from the fur coats of the animals, and 
that after he had given the King his share, the fur 
coats of all the animals belonged to him." 

" Did the animals know it? " 

" I think they did, for they were accustomed to hav- 
ing men try to take away their fur coats. All the 
other hunters were very angry when they found that 
the King had given this order, but the Chief Hunts- 
man told them that they might have a share in the 
hunting, only they must ask his permission and pay 
tribute to the King; and that satisfied them for a while. 

" The Chief Huntsman sailed to the far country 
and built a castle for himself and his men, and when 
winter came they found that it was indeed very cold — 
so cold that the wine and the cider froze and had to 
be given out by the pound instead of the pint. But 
that was not the worst of it. There was a dragon." 

Helene's blue eyes grew round with interest. 

" A dragon whose poisonous breath tainted the food 
and caused a terrible plague. They prayed to Saint 
Luke the Physician for help, and he appeared to them 
in a vision and said, ' I cannot do anything for you so 
long as you eat not good food. God made man to live 



THE GARDENS OF HELENE 259 

in a garden, not to fill himself with salt fish and salt 
meat and dry bread.' But they could not plant a gar- 
den in the middle of winter, and they had to wait. 
When the ship went back to France a gallant captain — 
named Samuel de Champlain — sent a letter to a 
friend of his in France, praying him to send a gardener 
with seeds, roots and cuttings that there might be 
good broths and tisanes and sauces to work magic 
against the dragon that he slay no more of their folk. 
And, little Helene, I am filling a pair of paniers with 
those roots and those seeds, and I am going to be a 
gardener beyond the sunset." 

Helene looked grave. To find her friend and play- 
fellow suddenly dropped away from her into the mid- 
dle of a fairy-tale was rather terrifying, but it was also 
thrilling. She slipped down from the bench. 

" You shall have cuttings from my very own rose- 
bushes," said she; and at her direction Lescarbot took 
up very carefully small rose-shoots that had rooted 
themselves around the great bushes, — bushes that bore 
roses white with a faint flush, white with a golden- 
creamy heart, pure snow-white, sunrise pink and deep 
glowing crimson with a purple shade. 

If Lescarbot had been a superstitious man, he might 
have been inclined to gloom during his first sea-voyage, 
for the ship in which he and Poutrincourt set sail from 
Rochelle on the thirteenth of May, 1606, was called 
the Jonas. But instead he joined in all the diversions 
possible in their two months' voyage — harpooning 
porpoises, fishing for cod oft the Banks, or dancing 
on the deck in calm weather, — and in his leisure kept 
a lively and entertaining journal of the adventure. 
They ran into dense fog in which they could see noth- 
ing; they saw, when the mist cleared, a green and 



26o DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

lovely shore, but before it fierce and dangerous rocKs 
on which the breakers pounded. Then a storm broke, 
with rolling thunder like a salute of cannon. At last 
on July 27 they sailed into the narrow channel at the 
entrance of the harbor of Port Royal. 

The flag of France, with its golden lilies on a white 
ground, gleamed in the noon sunlight as they came 
up the bay toward the little group of wooden build- 
ings in the edge of the forest. Not a man was to be 
seen on the silent shore; a birch canoe, with one old 
Indian in it, hovered near the landing. A great fear 
gripped the hearts of Bienville de Poutrincourt and 
Marc Lescarbot. Were Pontgrave and Champlain all 
dead with their people? Had help come too late? 

Then from the bastion of the rude fortifications a 
cannon barked salute, and a Frenchman with a gun 
in his hand came running down to the beach. The 
ship's guns returned the salute, and the trumpets sang 
loud greeting to whoever might be there to hear. 

When they had landed they learned what had hap- 
pened. There were only two Frenchmen in the fort; 
Pontgrave and the others, fearing that the supply 
ship would never arrive, had gone twelve days before 
in two small ships of their own building to look for 
some of the French fishing fleet who might have pro- 
visions. The two who remained had volunteered to 
stay and guard the buildings and stores. There was a 
village of friendly Indians near by, and the chief, 
Membertou, who was more than a hundred years old, 
had seen the distant sail of the Jonas and come to warn 
the white men, who were at dinner. Not knowing 
whether the strange ship came in peace or war, one of 
the comrades had gone to the platform on which the 
cannon were mounted, and stood ready to do what 



THE GARDENS OF HELENE 261 

he could in defense, while the other ran down to the 
shore. When they saw the French flag at the mast- 
head the cannon spoke joyfully in salute. 

All was now eager life and activity. Poutrincourt 
sent out a boat to explore the coast, which met the 
two little ships of Pontgrave and Champlain and told 
the great news. Lescarbot, exploring the meadows 
under the guidance of some of Membertou's people, 
saw moose with their young feeding peacefully upon 
the lush grass, and beavers building their curious habi- 
tations in a swamp. Pontgrave took his departure 
for France in the Jonas, and Champlain and Poutrin- 
court began making plans. 

The winter in Port Royal had been less severe than 
the terrible first winter of the settlement, on the St. 
Croix, but the two leaders decided to take one of the 
ramshackle little ships and make another exploring 
voyage along the coast, to see whether some more 
comfortable site for the colony could not be found. 
There was plenty of leeway to the southward, for De 
Monts was supposed to control everything as far south 
as the present site of Philadelphia; but the coast had 
never been accurately charted by the French further 
south than Cape Cod. 

Lescarbot, who was to command at Port Royal in 
their absence, had already laid out his kitchen-garden 
and set about spading and planting it. The kitchen, 
the smithy and the bakery were on the south side of 
the quadrangle around which the wooden buildings 
stood; east of them was the arched gateway, pro- 
tected by a sort of bastion of log-work, from which 
a path led to the water a few paces away; and west 
of them another bastion matched it, mounting the four 
cannon. The storehouses for ammunition and provl- 



262 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

sions were on the eastern side; on the west were the 
men's quarters, and on the north, a dining-hall and 
lodgings for the chief men of the company, who now 
numbered fifteen. Lescarbot set some of the men to 
burning over the meadows that they might sow wheat 
and barley; others broke up new soil for the herbs, 
roots and cuttings he had brought, and he himself, 
hoe in hand, was busiest of all. 

" Do not overtask yourself," warned Poutrincourt, 
pausing beside the thin, pale-faced man who knelt in 
the long shadows of the rainy dawn among his neatly- 
arranged plots. " If you are too zealous you may 
never see France again." Lescarbot laughed and dug 
a little grave in his plantation. " What in heaven's 
name are those? " 

" Potatoes," answered the lawyer-gardener. " The 
Peruvian root they are planting in Ireland." 

" But you do not expect to get a crop this year — 
and in this climate? " 

" I don't expect anything at all. I am making the 
experiment. If they come up, good; if they do not, I 
have seed enough for next year." 

The potatoes came up. It was an unusually hot 
summer, and the situation was favorable. If Lescar- 
bot had known the habits of the vegetable he might 
not have thought of putting them into the ground on 
the last day of July, but they grew and flourished, and 
their odd ivory-and-gold blossoms were charming. 
Lescarbot worked all day in the bracing sunlit air, 
and now and then he hoed and transplanted by moon- 
light. In the evening he read, wrote, or planned out 
the next day's program. 

September came, with cool bright days and a hint 
of frost at night; the lawyer marshalled his forces 



THE GARDENS OF HELENE 263 

and harvested the crops. The storehouses, already 
stocked with Pontgrave's abundant provision, vi^ere 
filled to overflowing, and they had to dig a makeshift 
cellar or root-pit under a rough shelter for the last 
of their produce. The potatoes were carefully be- 
stowed in huge hampers provided by Membertou's 
people, who were greatly interested in all that the 
white men did. Old Jacqueline had said that they 
needed " room to breathe," and Lescarbot was taking 
no chances on this unknown American product. 

October came; the Indians showed the white men 
how to grind corn, and the carpenters planned a water- 
mill to be constructed in the spring, to take the place 
of the tedious hand-mill worked by two men. Wild 
geese flew overhead, recalling to the Frenchmen the 
legends of Saint Gabriel's hounds. The forests robed 
themselves in hues like those of a priceless Kashmir 
shawl, and the squirrels, martens, beavers, otters, 
weasels, which the hunters brought in were in their 
winter coats. But the exploring party had not re- 
turned. Lescarbot, who had occupied spare moments 
in preparing a surprise for them when they did return, 
and carefully drilled the men in their parts, began to be 
secretly anxious. But on the morning of November 
14, old Membertou, who had appointed himself an in- 
formal sentinel to patrol the waters near the fort, ap- 
peared with the news that the chiefs were coming 
back. 

All was excitement in a moment, although Lescar- 
bot privately had to admit that he could not even see 
a sail, to say nothing of recognizing the boat or its 
occupants. But the long-sighted old sagamore was 
right. The party of adventurers, their craft consid- 
erably the worse for the journey, steering with a pair 



264 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

of oars in place of a rudder, reached the landing-place 
and battered, weary and dilapidated, came up to the 
fort. They were surprised and disappointed to see 
no one about except a few curious Indians peeping 
from the woods. 

As they neared the wooden gateway it was suddenly 
flung open, and out marched a procession of masquers, 
headed by Neptune in full costume of shell-fringed 
robe, diadem, trident, and garlands of kelp and sea- 
moss, attended by tritons grotesquely attired, and 
fauns, reinforced by a growing audience of Indians, 
squaws and papooses. This merry company greeted 
the wanderers with music, song and some excellent 
French verse written by Lescarbot for the occasion. 
Refreshed with laughter and the relief of finding all 
so well conducted, Champlain, Poutrincourt and their 
men went in to have something to eat and drink. Then 
they spent the rest of the day hearing and telling the 
story of the last three months. 

It is written down, adorned with drawings, in the 
journals of Champlain, and it was all told over as the 
men sat around their blazing fires and talked, all to- 
gether, while a light November snow flurried in the 
air outside. 

" So you see we lost our rudder in a storm off 
Mount Desert — " " And the autumn gales drove us 
back before we had fairly passed Port Fortune — " 
" It came near being Port Malheur for us, and it was 
for Pierre and Jacques le Malouin, poor fellows. 
They and three others stayed ashore for the night and 
hundreds of Indians attacked them, — oh, but hun- 
dreds. Well, we heard the uproar — naturally it 
waked us in a hurry — and up we jumped and snatched 
any weapon that was handy, and piled into the boat in 



THE GARDENS OF HELENE 265 

our shirts. Two of the shore party were killed and we 
saw the other three running for their boat for dear 
life, all stuck over with arrows like hedgehogs, my 
faith! So then we landed and charged the Indians, 
who must have thought we were ghosts, for they left 
off whooping and ran for the woods. Our provisions 
were so far spent that we thought it best to return 
after that, and in any case — it would be as bad, would 
it not, to die of Indians as to die of scurvy?" 

" But tell me, my dear fellow," said Champlain when 
the happy hubbub had a little subsided, " how have 
your gardens prospered? Truly I need not ask, in 
view of the abundance of the dinner you gave us." 

Lescarbot smiled. " I think that the saints must 
have whispered to the little plants," he said whim- 
sically, " or else they knew that they must grow their 
best for the honor of France. But perhaps it is not 
strange. I had the seeds and roots from the garden 
ofHelene." 

"And who is Helene? " asked Champlain with in- 
terest. Lescarbot explained. 

" It was really wonderful," he said in conclusion, 
" to see how careful she was to remember every herb 
and plant which might be useful, and to ask Jacqueline 
for some especial recipes for cordials and tisanes for 
the sick. And by the way, Jacqueline told me that 
the sea-captains regard potatoes as especially good to 
prevent or cure scurvy." 

In any case the potato was popular among the ex- 
iled Frenchmen. They ate it boiled, they ate it par- 
boiled, sliced and fried in deep kettles of fat, they 
ate it in stews, and they ate it — and liked it best of 
all — roasted in the ashes. Jacqueline had said that 
the water in which the root was boiled must always be 



266 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

thrown away, which showed that there was some- 
thing uncanny about it, but whether it was due to the 
potatoes or the general variety of the bill of fare, 
there was not a case of scurvy in the camp all winter. 

Soon after his return Champlain broached a plan 
which he had been perfecting during the voyage. The 
fifteen men of rank formed a society, to be called 
" L'Ordre de Bon-Temps." Each man became Grand- 
Master in turn, for a single day. On that day he 
was responsible for the dinner, — the cooking, cater- 
ing, buying and serving. When not in office he usually 
spent some days in hunting, fishing and trading with the 
Indians for supplies. He had full authority over the 
kitchen during his reign, and it was a point of honor 
with each Grand Master to surpass, if possible, the 
abundance, variety and gastronomic excellence of the 
meals of the day before. There was no market to 
draw upon, but the caterer could have steaks and 
roasts and pies of moose, bear, venison and caribou; 
beavers, otters, hares, trapped for their fur, also 
helped to feed the hunters. Ducks, geese, grouse and 
plover were to be had for the shooting. Sturgeon, 
trout and other fish might be caught in the bay, or 
speared through the ice of the river. The supplies 
brought from France, with the addition of all this 
wilderness fare, held out well, and Lescarbot expressed 
the opinion, with which nobody disagreed, that no epi- 
cure in Paris could dine better in the Rue de I'Ours 
than the pioneers of Port Royal dined that winter. 

Ceremony was not neglected, either. At the din- 
ner hour, twelve o'clock, the Grand Master of the 
day entered the dining-hall, a napkin on his shoulder, 
his staff of office in his hand, and the collar of the 
Order, worth about four crowns, about his neck. 




'THE GRAND MASTER OF THE DAY ENTERED THE 
DINING HALL." 

—Page 266 



THE GARDENS OF HELENE 267 

After him came the Brotherhood in procession, each 
carrying a dish. Indian chiefs were often guests at 
the board; old Membertou was always made welcome. 
Biscuit, bread and many other kinds of food served 
there were new and alluring luxuries to the Indians, 
and warriors, squaws and children who had not seats 
at table squatted on the floor gravely awaiting their 
portions. 

The evening meal was less formal. When all were 
gathered about the fire, the Grand Master presented 
the collar and staff of office to his successor, and drank 
his health in a cup of wine. 

The winter was unusually mild; until January they 
needed nothing warmer than their doublets. On the 
fourteenth, a Sunday, they went boating on the river, 
and came home singing the gay songs of France. A 
little later they went to visit the wheat fields two 
leagues from the fort, and dined merrily out of doors. 
When the snow melted they saw the little bright blades 
of the autumn sowing already coming up from the rich 
black soil. Winter was over, and work began in good 
heart. Poutrincourt was not above gathering turpen- 
tine from the pines and making tar, after a process in- 
vented by himself. Then late in spring a ship came 
into harbor with news which ended everything. The 
fur-traders of Normandy, Brittany and the Vizcayan 
ports had succeeded in having the privilege of De 
Monts withdrawn. Hardly more than a year after 
his arrival Lescarbot left his beloved gardens, and in 
October all the colonists were once more in France. 
Membertou and his Indians bewailed their departure, 
and held them in long remembrance. Wilderness 
houses soon go back to their beginnings, and it was 
not long before all that was left of the brave and gay 



268 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

French colony was a little clearing where the herb of 
immortality, the tansy of Saint Athanase, lifted its 
golden buttons and thick dark green foliage above the 
remnant of the garden of Helene. 

Yet the experience of that year was not lost. It 
was the first instance of a company of settlers in that 
northern climate passing the winter without illness, 
discord or trouble with the Indians. Later, in the lit- 
tle new settlements of Quebec and Montreal, some of 
the colonists met again under the wise and^ kindly 
rule of Champlain. Little Helene lived to bring her 
own roses to a garden in New France, and teach In- 
dian girls the secrets which old Jacqueline taught her. 
And it is recorded in the history of the voyageurs, 
priests and adventurers of France in the New World 
that wherever they went they were apt to take with 
them seeds and plants of wholesome garden produce, 
which they planted along their route in the hope that 
they might thus be of service to those who came after 
them. 



THE WOODEN SHOE 

Amsterdam's the cradle where the race was rocked — 
All the ships of all the world to her harbor flocked. 
Rosy with the sea-wind, solid, stubborn, sweet, 
Played the children by canals, up and down the street. 
Neltje, Piet and Hendrik, Dirck and Myntje too, — 
Little Nick of Leyden sailed his wooden shoe. 

" Quarter-deck and cabin — rig her fore-and-aft," — 
Thus he murmured wisely as he launched his craft. 
" Cutlass, pike and musquetoun, howitzer and shot — 
But our knives and mirrors and beads are worth the lot." 
Room enough for cargo to last a year or two, 
In the round amidships of a wooden shoe! 

Bobbing on the waters of the Nieuwe Vlei 
See the bantam galleot, short and broad and high. 
Laden for the Indies, trading all the way, 
Frank and shrewd and cautious, fiery in a fray, — 
Sagamore and mandarin are all the same to 5'ou, 
Little Nick of Leyden with your wooden shoe! 



260 



XVIII 

THE FIRES THAT TALKED 

ALL along the coast of Britain, from John o' 
Groat's to Beachey Head, from Saint Michael's 
Mount to Cape Wrath, twinkled the bonfires on the 
headlands. Henry Hudson, returning from a voyage 
among icebergs, guessed at once what this chain of 
lights meant. The son of Mary Queen of Scots had 
been crowned in London.^ 

Hudson's keen eyes were unusually grave and 
thoughtful as the Muscovy Duck sailed up to London 
Pool on the incoming tide. The sailors looked even 
more sober, for most of them were English Protestants, 
with a few Flemings, and John Williams the pilot was 
an Anabaptist. It was he who asked the question of 
which all were thinking. 

" Master Hudson, d'ye think the new King will light 
them other fires — the ones at Smithfield? " 

Hudson shook his head. " That's a thing no man 
can say for certain, John. But there's the Low Coun- 
tries and the Americas to run to. 'T is not as it was 
in Queen Mary's day." 

" Aye, but Spain has got all of America, pretty near, 
and the French are nabbing the rest," said the pilot 
doubtfully. 

" Nay, that's a bigger place than you guess, over 
yonder. Ever see the map that Doctor Dee made for 
Queen Bess near thirty years ago? I remember him 

270 



THE FIRES THAT TALKED 271 

showing it to my grandsire with the ink scarce dry on 
it. The country Ralegh's people saw has got room for 
the whole of France and England, and plenty timber 
and corn-land. Sir Walter he knew that." 

There was plague in London when they landed, and 
all sought their families in fear and trembling, not 
knowing what might have come and gone in their ab- 
sence. Hudson's house was at Mortlake on the 
Thames above London, and there he was rejoiced to 
find all well. Young John Hudson was brimful of 
Mr. Brereton's new Relacion of the Voyage of Cap- 
tain Bartholomew Gosnold and Captain Bartholomew 
Gilbert to the North part of Virginia by permission of 
the honorable Knight Sir Walter Ralegh. Straw- 
berries bigger than those of England, and cherries in 
clusters like grapes, blackbirds with carnation-colored 
wings, Indians who painted their eyebrows white and 
made faces over mustard, were mixed higgledy-piggledy 
in his bubbling talk. Hudson, turning the pages of 
the new book, saw at once that on this voyage around 
Cape Cod the little ship Concord had sailed seas un- 
known to him. 

" Why won't the Company send you to the Ameri- 
cas, Dad? " the boy asked eagerly. " When will I be 
old enough to go to sea? " 

" Wait till ye're fourteen at least. Jack," his father 
answered. " There's much to learn before ye're a 
master mariner," 

In the next few years things were not so well with 
English mariners as they had been. Cecil and How- 
ard, picking a quarrel with Ralegh, had him shut up in 
the Tower. The Dutch were trading everywhere, 
seizing the chances King James missed. But Hudson 
was in the employ of the Muscovy Company like his 



2^2 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

father and grandfather, and the Russian fur trade was 
making that Company rich. 

Captain John Smith, a shrewd-faced soldier with 
merry eyes, appeared at the house one day and told 
entertaining stories of his campaigns under Prince Sig- 
ismund of Bohemia. He and the boy John drove the 
neighbors nearly distracted with curiosity, one winter 
evening, signalling with torches from the house to the 
river.^ To anxious souls who surmised a new Guy 
Fawkes conspiracy Captain Smith showed how he had 
once conveyed a message to the garrison of a beleag- 
uered city in this way. Here was the code. The 
first half of the alphabet was represented by single 
lights, the second half by pairs. To secure attention 
three torches were shown at equal distances from one 
another, until a single light flashed in response to show 
that the signal was understood. For any letter from 
A to L a single light was shown and hidden one or more 
times according to the number of the letter from the 
beginning; thus, three flashes meant C; four meant D, 
and so on. For a letter between M and Z the same 
plan was followed using two torches. The end of a 
word was signified by three hghts. In this way Smith 
had spelled out the message, " On Thursday night I 
will charge on the east; at the alarum, sally you." He 
had, however, translated it into Latin, to make it short. 

John Hudson found new interest in Latin. 

When Captain Smith began to talk of joining a new 
colony to go to Virginia the boy begged hard to be al- 
lowed to go. But just at this time the Muscovy Com- 
pany was sending Henry Hudson to look for a way 
round through northern seas to the Spice Islands. The 
Dutch were already trading in the Portuguese Indies. 
If England could reach them by a shorter route, it 



THE FIRES THAT TALKED 273 

would be a very pleasant discovery for the Muscovy 
Company. 

Even in 1607 geographers believed in an open polar 
sea north of Asia. Hudson tried the Greenland route. 
Sailing east of Greenland he found himself between 
that country and the islands named " Nieuwland " by 
William Barents the Dutch navigator in 1596. Their 
pointed icy mountains seemed to push up through the 
sea. Icebergs crowded the waters like miniature peaks 
of a submerged range. Hudson returned to report 
to the company " no open sea." 

In 1608 he was again sent out on the same errand. 
This time he steered further east, between those islands 
and another group named by Barents Nova Zembla. 
He sailed nearer to the pole than any man had been 
before him, and found whales bigger, finer and more 
numerous than anywhere else. Rounding the North 
Cape on his way home he made the first recorded ob- 
servation of a sun-spot. In August, when he returned 
and made his report, there was a sensation in the sea- 
faring world. 

The Dutch promptly sent whaling ships into the arc- 
tic seas, and suggested, through Van Meteren the 
Dutch consul in London, a friend of Hudson, that the 
English navigator should come to Amsterdam and talk 
of entering their service. While there, he received an 
offer from the French Ambassador, suggesting that his 
services would be welcome to a proposed French East 
India Company. Hearing this, the Dutch hastened to 
secure him, and on April 4, 1609, he sailed from Am- 
sterdam in a yacht of eighty tons called the Half Moon 
and shaped rather like one, manned by a crew of 
twenty, half English and half Netherlanders, and John 
as cabin-boy. 



274 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

John was in such a state of bliss as a boy can know 
when sailing on the venture of his dreams. His father 
had told him in confidence that as his sailing orders 
were almost the same as the year before, he did not 
expect to find the northern route to India in that direc- 
tion. Failing this the Half Moon would look for it in 
the western seas. Of this plan he had said nothing 
in Holland. 

He found, as he had expected, that the arctic waters 
were choked with ice, and turning southward he headed 
for the Faroe Isles. While in Holland he had had a 
letter from Captain John Smith, who had explored the 
regions about Chesapeake Bay. No straits leading to 
the western ocean had been discovered there, and no 
Sea of Verrazzano. Captain Smith's opinion was that 
if such a passage existed it would be somewhere about 
the fortieth parallel. Explorations had already been 
made farther north. Davis Strait had been discovered 
some years before by John Davis, now dead. Martin 
Frobisher had found another strait leading northwest. 
Both of these were so far north that they were likely to 
be ice-bound by the time the little Half Moon could 
reach them. Hudson meant to look along the coast 
further south, and see what could be found there. 

The Half Moon took in water at the Faroes and 
anchored some seven weeks later, on July i8, in Penob- 
scot Bay. Her foremast was gone and her sails ripped 
and rent by the gales of the North Atlantic, and the 
carpenter with a selected crew rowed ashore and chose 
a pine tree for a new mast. While this was a-making 
and the sails were patched up, the crew not otherwise 
engaged went fishing. 

^* I say," presently observed John Hudson, who 
knew Brereton's Relacion by heart, " this must ha' been 



THE FIRES THAT TALKED 275 

the place where they caught so many fish that they were 
' pestered with Cod ' and threw numbers of 'em over- 
board. This makes twenty-seven, Dad, so far." 

During that week they caught fifty cod, a hundred 
lobsters and a halibut which John declared to be half 
as big as the ship. Two French boats appeared, full 
of Indians ready to trade beaver skins for red cloth. 
The strawberry season was past, but John found wild 
cherries, small, deep red, in heavy bunches. When he 
tried to eat them, however, they were so sour that he 
nearly choked. Cautiously he tasted the big blue 
whortleberries that grew on high bushc:. near water, 
and found them delicious. He had been eating them 
by the handful for some time when he became aware 
that there was a feaster on the other side of the thicket. 
Receiving no reply to his challenge he went to investi- 
gate and saw a brown bear standing on his hind legs 
and raking the berries off the twigs with both fore- 
paws, into his mouth. At sight of John he dropped 
on all fours and cantered off. 

Leaving the bay they cruised along the coast past 
Cape Cod, and then steered southwest for the fortieth 
parallel. Wind and rain came on in the middle of 
August, and they were blown toward an inlet which 
Hudson decided to be the James. Not knowing how 
the English governor of Jamestown might regard an 
intrusion by a Dutch ship, he turned north again, and 
on the twenty-eighth of August entered a large bay and 
took soundings. More than once the Half Moon, 
light as she rode, grounded on sand-banks, and Hudson 
shook his head in rueful doubt. 

" D' you think the straits are here. Dad?" asked 
John when he had a chance to speak with his father 
alone. 



276 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

*' Hardly. This is fresh water. It's the mouth of 
a river." ^ 

" Yes, but might there be an isthmus — or the like? " 

" A big river with as strong a current as this would 
not rise on a narrow, level strip of land, son. It's 
bringing down tons of sand to make these banks we 
run into. There's a great wide country inland there." 

The chanteys of the sailors were heard at daybreak 
in the lonely sea, as the Half Moon went on her way 
northward. On September 3 the little ship edged into 
another and bigger bay to the north. Whether it was 
a bay or a lake Hudson was at first rather doubtful. 
The shores were inhabited, for little plumes of smoke 
arose everywhere, and soon from all sides log canoes 
came paddling toward the ship. These Indians were 
evidently not unused to trading, for they brought green 
tobacco, hemp, corn and furs to sell, and some of them 
knew a few words of French. By this, and by signs, 
they gave Hudson to understand that three rivers, or 
inlets, came into this island-encircled sea, the largest 
being toward the north. Hudson determined to fol- 
low this north river and see where it led. 

As he sailed cautiously into the channel, taking 
soundings and observing the shores, he was puzzled. 
The tide rose and fell as if this were an inlet of the sea, 
and it was far deeper than an ordinary river. In fact 
it was more like a Norwegian fiord. ^ It might possibly 
lead to a lake, and this lake might have an outlet to the 
western ocean. That it was a strait he did not believe. 
Even in the English Channel the meeting tides of the 
North Sea and the Atlantic made rough water, and the 
Half Moon was drifting as easily as if she were slip- 
ping down stream. In any event, nothing else had been 
found, either north or south of this point, which could 



THE FIRES THAT TALKED 277 

possibly be a strait, and Hudson meant to discover ex- 
actly what this was before he set sail for Amsterdam. 

They passed an Indian village in the woods to the 
right, and according to the Indians who had come on 
board the place was called Sapokanican,^ and was 
famous for the making of wampum or shell beads. A 
brook of clear sweet water flowed close by. Presently 
Hudson anchored and sent fiv^e men ashore in a boat 
to explore the right-hand bank of the channel. Night 
came on, and it began to rain, but the boat had not re- 
turned. Hudson slept but little. In the morning the 
missing men appeared with a tale of disaster. After 
about two leagues' travel they had come to a bay full of 
islands. Here they had been attacked by two canoes 
carrying twenty-six Indians, and their arrows had killed 
John Colman and wounded two other men. It grew 
so dark when the rain began that they dared not seek 
the ship, and the current was so strong that their grap- 
nel would not hold, so that they had had to row all 
night. 

Sailing only in the day time and anchoring at night 
the little Dutch ship went on to the north, looking be- 
tween the steep rocky banks like a boat carved out of a 
walnut-shell, in the wooden jaws of a nutcracker. 
After dark, fires twinkled upon the heights, and the lap- 
ping waters about the quiet keel were all shining with 
broken stars. The flame appeared and vanished like 
a signal, and John Hudson wondered if the Indians 
knew John Smith's trick of sending a message as far as 
a beacon light could be seen. 

One night he cHmbed up on the poop with the ship's 
great lantern and tried the flashing signals he remem- 
bered. Before many minutes two of the wild men had 
drawn near to watch, and although John could not make 



278 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

out the meaning of the light that came and went upon 
the cliffs, it was quite clear that they could. One of 
them waved his mantle In front of the lantern, and 
turning to the boy nodded and grinned good-naturedly. 
The signal fires must have talked to some purpose, for 
the next day a delegation paddled out from the shore to 
invite the great captain, his son and his chief officers to 
a feast. 

When the party arrived at the house of the chief, 
which was a round building, or pavilion, of saplings 
sheathed with oak bark, mats were spread for them to 
sit upon, and food was served in polished red wooden 
bowls. Two hunters were sent out to bring in game, 
and returned almost at once with pigeons which were 
immediately dressed and cooked by the women. One 
of the hunters gave John one of the arrowheads used 
for shooting small birds; it was no bigger than his least 
fingernail and made of a red stone like jasper. A fat 
dog had also been killed, skinned and dressed with 
shell knives, and served as the dish of honor. Hud- 
son hastily explained in English to his companions that 
whether they relished dog or not, it would never do to 
refuse it, as this was a special dish for great occasions. 

" Dad," said John that night, " do you think any 
ship with white men ever came up here before? " 

" No," said Hudson. 

" I hope they'll call this the Hudson." 

The water was now hardly more than seven feet 
deep, and the tide rose only a few Inches. Hudson 
came reluctantly to the conclusion that there was no 
proceeding further In a ship. He sent a boatload of 
men several leagues up-stream, but they came back with 
the report that the river was much the same so far as 
they had gone. 



THE FIRES THAT TALKED 279 

During the voyage they had often seen parties of 
the savages, usually friendly but sometimes hostile. 
Flights of arrows occasionally were aimed at the Half 
Moon, and the crew replied with musket-shots which 
sometimes but not always hit the marlc. The painted 
warriors had a way of disappearing into the woods 
like elves. Once, in spite of all endeavors to shake 
him off, a solitary Indian in a small canoe followed 
along under the stern till he saw the chance of climb- 
ing up the rudder to the cabin window. He stole the 
pillow off the commander's bed, two shirts, and two 
bandoliers (ammunition-belts), the tinkle of which be- 
trayed him. The mate saw him making off with his 
plunder and shot him, whereupon the other Indians 
paddled off at top speed, some even leaping from their 
canoes to swim ashore. A boat put out and recovered 
the stolen property, and when a swimming Indian 
caught the side of it to overturn it the cook valiantly 
beat him off with a sword. These with many other ad- 
ventures were duly written down by Robert Juet the 
mate. 

To John Hudson the voyage was a journey of en- 
chantment. Nothing he had ever seen was in the least 
like the glory of the autumn forests, mantling the moun- 
tains in scarlet, gold, malachite, russet, orange and 
purple. He had been in the gardens at Lambeth 
where Tradescant the famous gardener ruled, but there 
was more color in a single vivid maple standing blood- 
red in a bit of lowland than in all his Lancaster roses. 
And the great river had its flowers as well. A tall 
plant like an elfin elm covered with thick-set tiny blos- 
soms yellow as broom, grew wild over the pastures, and 
interspersed with this fairy forest were thickets of 
deep lavender daisies with golden centers. In low- 



28o DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

land glades were tall spikes of cardinal blossoms, and 
clusters of deep blue flowers like buds that never 
opened. Vines loaded with bunches of scarlet and 
orange berries like waxwork, and others bearing fluffy 
bunches of silky gray down curly as an old man's beard, 
climbed the trees that overhung the stream. The 
mountains in the upper river came right down to the 
water like the glacis of a giant fort, and fitful winds 
pounced upon the Half Moon and rocked her like a 
cradle. Once there was a late thunder-shower, and 
the noise of the thunder among the humped ranges was 
for all the world like balls rolling in a great game of 
bowls played by goblins of the mountains. 

On the fourth of October, the Half Moon left the 
island which the Indians called Manahatta, passed 
through the Narrows and sailed for Europe. Looking 
back at those green shores with their bronze feather- 
crowned people watching to see the flight of their 
strange guest, John Hudson felt that when he was a 
man, he would like nothing better than to have an es- 
tate on the shores of the noble river, which no white 
boy had ever before set eyes on. Where a great ter- 
race rose, some fifty miles above Manahatta, walled 
around by mountains and almost two hundred feet 
above the river, there should be a fort, of which Cap- 
tain John Smith should be the commander; and in the 
broadening of the river below to form an inland sea, 
his father's squadron should ride, while the Indians of 
all the upper reaches of the river should come to pay 
tribute and bring wampum, furs and tobacco in ex- 
change for trinkets. And on the island at the mouth 
of the river there would be a great city, greater than 
Antwerp, to which all the ships of the world should 
come as they came now to Antwerp and to London. 



THE FIRES THAT TALKED 281 

So dreaming, John Hudson saw the shores of this new 
world vanish in the blue line, where earth and sky are 
one. 

NOTES 

1. The kindling of bonfires and beacon lights on the accession of a 
sovereign or any other occasion of national rejoicing is a very old 
custom in Britain and is still kept up. At the time of Queen Victoria's 
jubilee trees were planted closely to form a great V on the side of 
the Downs, and when the fires were lighted on Ditchling Beacon and 
other heights the letter stood out black against the close turf of the 
hillside. 

2. The account of Smith's campaigns and signalling code is given 
in his autobiography. 

3. The Delaware. 

4. Some authorities consider the Hudson River to be actually a fiord 
or fjord and not a true river. 

5. Greenwich Village. 



IMPERIALISM 

The Tailor sat with his goose on the table — 

(Table of Laws it was, he said) 
Fashioning uniforms dyed in sable, 

Picked out with gold and sanguine red. 

" This," he said as he snipped and drafted, 
" Sublimely foreshadowing cosmic Fate 

With world-dominion august, resplendent. 
Will wear, as nothing can wear but Hate! 

" Chimerical dreams of souls romantic 
Are out of date as an old wife's rune. 
Britain is doomed as Plato's Republic — " 
When in at the door came a lilting tune! 

"Here to-day and gone to-morrow — 

All in the luck of the road! 
Didn't come to stay forever. 

But we'll take our share of the load! " 

Highlanders, Irish, Danes, Egyptians, 
Norman or Slav the dialects ran ; 
Something more than a board-school shaped them — 
Drill and discipline never made man! 

Once they knew Crecy, Hastings, Drogheda, 
Moscow, Assaye, Khartoum or Glencoe, — 

Now the old hatreds are tinder for campfires. 
England has only her world to show! 

They are not dreamers, these men of the Empire, 
Guarding their land in the old-time way, 
And this is the style that prevails in the Legions,- 
" The foe of the past is a friend to-day." 

282 



IMPERIALISM 283 

"It's a long, long road to the Empire 

{From Beersheba even to Dan) 
And the time is rather late for a chronic Hymn of Hate, — 

And zve know the tailor doesn't make the man! " 



XIX 

ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 

BAREFOOT and touzle-headed, in the coarse rus- 
set and blue homespun of an apprentice, a small 
boy sidled through the wood. Like a hunted hedge- 
hog, he was ready to run or fight. Where a bright 
brook slid into the meadows, he stopped, and looked 
through new leaves at the infinite blue of the sky. 
Words his grandfather used to read to him came back 
to his mind. 

" Let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout 
from the top of the mountain." 

The Bible which old Joseph Bradford had left to 
his grandson had been taken away, but no one could 
take away the memory of it. If he had dared. Will 
would have shouted aloud then and there. For all 
his hunger and weariness and dread of the future the 
strength of the land entered into his young soul. He 
drank of the clear brook, and let it wash away the soil 
of his pilgrimage. Then he curled himself in a hollow 
full of dry leaves, and went to sleep. 

When he woke, it was in the edge of the evening. 
Long shadows pointed like lances among the trees. A 
horse was cropping the grass in a clearing, and some 
one beyond the thicket was reading aloud. For an in- 
stant he thought himself dreaming of the old cottage 
at Austerfield — but the voice was young and light- 
some. 

284 



ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 285 

" Where a man can live at all, there can he live 
nobly." 

The reader stopped and laughed out. A lively 
snarling came from a burrow not far away, where two 
badgers were quarrelling conscientiously. 

" Just like folks ye be, a-hectorin' and a-fussin'. 
What's the great question to settle now — predestina- 
tion or infant baptism? — Why, where under the can- 
opy did you come from, you pint o' cider? " 

" I be a-travelin\" Will said stoutly. 

" Runaway 'prentice, I should guess. I was one my- 
self at fifteen." 

" I'm 'leven, goln' on twelve," said the boy, standing 
as straight as he could, 

"Any folks?" 

" I hved with granddad until he died, four year 
back." 

" And so you're wayfarin', be you? What can you 
do to get your bread? " 

The urchin dug a bare toe into the sod. " I can 
work," he said half-defiantly. " Granddad always said 
I should be put to school some day, but my uncle won't 
have that. I can read." 

"Latin?" 

" No — English. Granddad weren't college-bred." 

" Nor I — they gave me more lickings than Latin at 
the grammar school down to Alvord, 'cause I would 
go bird's-nesting and fishing sooner than study my 
hie, haec, hoc. And now I've built me a booth like a 
wild man o' Virginia and come out here to get my 
Latin that I should ha' mastered at thirteen. All the 
travel-books are In Latin, and you have to know it to 
get on in foreign parts." 

" Have you been in foreign parts? " 



286 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

"Four year — France and Scotland and the Low 
Countries. But I got enough o' seeing Christians kill 
one another, and says I to myself, John Smith, you go 
see what they're about at home. And here I found our 
fen-sludgers all by the ears over Bishops and Papists 
and Brownists and such like. In Holland they let a 
man read's Bible in peace." 

" Is that the Bible you got there? " 

" Nay — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus — a mighty 
wise old chap, if he was an Emperor. And I've got 
Niccolo MacchiaveUi's seven books o' the Art o' War. 
When I'm weary of one I take to t' other, and between 
times I ride a tilt." He waved his hand toward a 
ring fastened on a tree, and a lance and horse-furniture 
leaning against the trunk. 

" Our folks be Separatists," the boy said. 

"Well, and what of it?" laughed the young man. 
" As I was a-reading here — a man is what his thoughts 
make him. Be he Catholic or Church Protestant or 
Baptist, he's what he's o' mind to be, good or bad. 
Other folk's say-so don't stop him — no more than 
them badgers' worryin' dams the brook." 

This was a new idea to Will. His hunger for books 
was so keen that it had seemed to him that without 
them, he would be stupid as the swine. John Smith 
seemed to understand it, for he added, 

" You bide here with me awhile, lad. Maybe there's 
a way for you to get learning, yet." 

Will shared the leafy booth and simple fare of his 
new friend for a fortnight, doing errands, rubbing 
down the black horse, Tamlane, and at odd times learn- 
ing his conjugations. When John Smith left his her- 
mitage and went to fight against the Turks in Tran- 
sylvania, he placed a little sum of money with a Puritan 



ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 287 

scholar at Scrooby to pay for the boy's schooling for a 
year or two. The yeoman uncle had a family of his 
own to provide for, and was glad to have Will off his 
hands. 

Transylvania in 1600 was on the very frontier of 
Christendom. John Smith needed all the philosophy 
he had learned from his favorite author when, after 
many adventures, he was taken prisoner and sent to 
the slave-market of Axopolis to be sold. Bogal, a 
Turkish pacha, bought the young Englishman to send 
as a gift to his future wife, Charatza Tragabigzanda, 
in Constantinople. 

Chained by the neck In gangs of twenties the slaves 
entered the great Moslem city. John Smith was left 
at the gate of a house exactly like all the others in the 
narrow noisy street. The beauty of an Oriental palace 
is inside the walls. Within the blank outer wall of 
stone and mud-brick, arched roofs, painted and gilded 
within, were upheld by slender round pillars of fine 
stone — marble, jasper, porphyry, onyx, red syenite, 
highly polished and sometimes brought from old 
palaces and temples in other lands. Intricate carving 
in marble or in fine hard wood adorned the doorways 
and lattices, and the balconies with their high lattice- 
work railings where the women could see into a room 
below without being seen. In the courtyards fountains 
plashed in marble basins, and from hidden gardens 
came the breath of innumerable roses. On floors of 
fine mosaic were silken many-hucd rugs, brought in 
caravans from Bagdad, Moussoul or Ispahan, and the 
soft patter of bare feet, morocco shoes and light san- 
dals came from the endless vistas of open arches. A 
silken rustling and once a gurgle of soft laughter might 
have told the Englishman that he was watched, but he 



288 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

knew no more what it meant than he understood the 
Arabic mottoes, interwoven with the decoration of the 
blue-and-gold walls. 

Charatza's curiosity was aroused at the sight of a 
slave so tall, ruddy and handsome. She sent for him 
to come into an inner room where she and her ladies 
sat, closely veiled, upon a cushioned divan. Bogal's 
letter said that the slave was a rich Bohemian noble- 
man whom he had captured in battle, and whose ran- 
som would buy Charatza splendid jewels. But when 
spoken to in Bohemian the captive looked perfectly 
blank. He did not seem to understand one word. 

Arabic and Turkish were no more successful. At 
last the young princess asked a question in Italian and 
found herself understood. It did not take long for her 
to find out that the story her lover had written had not 
a word of truth in it. She was as indignant as a spir- 
ited girl would naturally be. 

In one way and another she made opportunities to 
talk with the Englishman and to inquire of others about 
his career. She presently discovered that he was the 
champion who had beheaded three Turkish warriors, 
one after another, before the walls of the besieged 
city Regall. She made up her mind that when she was 
old enough to control her own fortune, which would 
be in the not very distant future, she would set him 
free and marry him. Such things had been done in 
Constantinople, and doubtless could be done again. 

But meantime Charatza's mother, learning that her 
daughter had been talking to a slave, was not at all 
pleased and threatened, since he was no nobleman and 
would not be ransomed, to sell him in the market. 
Charatza was used to having her way sooner or later, 
and managed to have him sent instead to her brother, a 



ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 289 

pacna or provincial governor in Tartary. She sent 
also a letter asking the pacha to be kind to the young 
English slave and give him a chance of learning Turk- 
ish and the principles of the Koran. 

This was far from agreeable to a brother who had 
already heard of his sister's liking for the penniless 
stranger, — especially as he found that the Englishman 
had no intention of turning Moslem. The slave-mas- 
ter was told to treat him with the utmost severity, 
which meant that his life was made almost unbearable. 
A ring of iron, with a curved iron handle, was locked 
around his neck, his only garment was a tunic of hair- 
cloth belted with undressed hide, he was herded with 
other Christian slaves and a hundred or more Turks 
and Moors who were condemned criminals, and, as the 
last comer, had to take the kicks and cuffs of all the 
others. The food was coarse and unclean, and only 
extreme hunger made it possible to eat it. 

John Smith was not the man to sit down hopelessly 
under misfortune, and he talked with the other Chris- 
tians whenever chance offered, about possible plans of 
escape. None of them saw any hope of getting away, 
even by joining their efforts. It may be that some of 
this talk was overheard; at any rate Smith was sent 
after a while to thresh wheat by himself in a barn two 
or three miles from the stone castle where the gov- 
ernor lived. The pacha rode up while he was at work 
and began to abuse him, taunting him with being a 
Christian outcast v/ho had tried to set himself above 
his betters by winning the favor of a Turkish lady. 
The Englishman flew at him like a wildcat, dragged 
him off his horse and broke his skull with the club 
which was used instead of a flail for threshing. Then 
he dressed himself in the Turk's garments, hid the body 



290 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

under a heap of grain, filled a bag with wheat for all 
his provision, mounted the horse of his late master, 
and rode away northward. He knew that Muscovy 
was in this general direction, and coming to a road 
marked by a cross, rode that way for sixteen days, 
hiding whenever he heard any sound of travelers for 
fear the iron slave-ring should betray him. At last he 
came to a Russian garrison on the River Don, where he 
found good friends. In 1604, after some other ad- 
ventures, he came again to England. All London was 
talking of the doings of King James, who in one short 
year had managed to dissatisfy both Catholics and 
Protestants. Since the voyages of Gosnold, Pring and 
Weymouth there was much interest in Virginia. 
Ralegh was a prisoner in the Tower. There was talk 
of a trading association to be called the London Com- 
pany, and it was said that this company planned a new 
plantation somewhere north of Roanoke. Smith could 
see the great future which might await an English set- 
tlement in that rich land. He decided to join the ad- 
venturers going out in the fleet of Captain Christopher 
Newport. Before sailing, he went to Lincolnshire to 
bid farewell to his own people, and in the shadow of 
the Tower of Saint Botolph's he espied a tall lad whose 
look recalled something. 

" Why," he cried with a hearty clasp of the hand. 
" 't is thyself grown a man. Will! And how goes the 
Latin?" 

" I love it well," the youth answered shyly. " Mas- 
ter Brewster hath also instructed me in the Greek. If 
— if I had known where to send it I would have re- 
paid the money you was so kind as to spare." 

" Nay, think no more o't — or rather, hand it on 
to some other young book-worm," laughed the bearded 



ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 291 

and bronzed captain. " And how be all your folk? " 

The lad's eyes rested wistfully upon the quaint old 
seaport streets. " The Bishop rails upon our congre- 
gation," he said. " Holland is better than a prison, 
and we shall go there soon." 

Smith's practical mind saw the uselessness of trying 
to get any Non-Conformist taken on by a royal colony 
in Virginia just then. " 'Tis a hard case," he said sym- 
pathetically, " but we may meet again some day. 
There's room enough in the Americas, the Lord knows, 
for all the honest men England can spare." 

Thus they parted, and on April 26, 1607, the Vir- 
ginia voyagers saw land at the mouth of the Chesa- 
peake. 

The company was rather top-heavy. Out of the 
hundred who were enrolled, fifty-two were gentlemen 
adventurers, each of whom thought himself as good as 
the rest and even a little better. No sooner had the 
ship dropped anchor than thirty of them went ashore 
to roam the forest, laughing and shouting as if they 
had the* country to themselves. The appearance of 
five Indians sent them scurrying back to the ship with 
two of their number wounded, for they had no weapons 
with them. That night the sealed orders of the Lon- 
don Company were opened, and it was found that the 
directors had appointed a council of seven to govern 
the colony and ch.oose a president for a year. The 
colonists were charged to search for gold and pearls 
and for a passage to the. East Indies. Nothing more 
original in the way of a colonial enterprise had oc- 
curred to the directors. Success in these undertak- 
ings meant immediate profits with which the new Com- 
pany could compete with Bristol, Antwerp, and the 
Muscovy Company's rich fur trade. 



292 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

In the list of names for the council appeared that of 
Captain John Smith, which was somewhat embarrass- 
ing, since a scandalous tale had been set going during 
the voyage, that he intended to lead a mutiny and make 
himself governor of the colony. This was so far be- 
lieved that he was kept a prisoner through the last part 
of the voyage. The other councilors, Newport, Gos- 
nold, Wingfield, Ratcliffe, Martin and Kendall, held 
their election without him and chose Wingfield presi- 
dent. 

Next day the carpenters began work on the shallop, 
which had been shipped in sections, and Wingfield or- 
dered Smith inland with a party of armed men, to ex- 
plore. They saw no Indians, but found a fire where 
oysters were still roasting, and made a good meal off 
them, though some of the luscious shellfish were so 
large that they had to be cut in pic:: before they were 
eaten. Coasting along the bay they discovered a river, 
which was explored when the shallop was launched. 
Upon this river they saw an Indian canoe forty feet 
long, made of the trunk of a tree hollowed out, Indian 
fashion, with hot stones and shell gouges. They found 
also oysters in abundance and in some of them fresh- 
water pearls. After spending seventeen days in ex- 
amining the country, they chose for their settlement a 
peninsula on the north side of the river called the Pow- 
hatans by the Indians, from the tribe living on its banks. 
This site was about forty miles from the sea, and here, 
on May 13, they moored their ships to trees in six 
fathom of water and named the place Jamestown, and 
the river the King's River. 

Thus far the Indians had been friendly, and Wing- 
field would not have any fortifications built, or any mili^ 
tary drill, for fear of arousing their anger. Captain 



ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 293 

Kendall, despite orders, constructed a crescent-shaped 
line of fence of untrimmed boughs, but most of the 
weapons remained in packing-cases on board ship. 
Wingfield, who regarded Smith as a rather dangerously 
outspoken man to have about just then, sent him with 
Newport and twenty others, to explore the river to its 
head. On the sixth day they passed the chief town 
of the Powhatans. On May 24 they reached the head 
of the river, set up a cross, and proclaimed in the wil- 
derness the sovereignty of King James Stuart. 

The thrifty eye of the Lincolnshire yeoman observed 
many things with satisfaction during this march. 
There might not be any gold mines, but there was un- 
limited timber, and the meadows would make as good 
pasture for cattle as any in England. In the forests 
were red deer and fallow deer, bears, otters, beavers, 
and foxes, besides animals unknown in Europe. One 
moonlight night, while examining deer tracks near a 
little stream, Smith saw humped on a fallen log above 
it a furry beast about the size of a badger, with black 
face and paws like a bear, and a bushy tail with cross- 
wise rings of brown and black. This queer animal 
was eating something, and dipping the food into the 
water before each mouthful. When Smith described 
it to the Indians he could make nothing of the name 
they gave it, but wrote it down as best he could — 
Araughcoune. Another new kind of creature was of 
the size of a rabbit, grayish white, with black ears and 
a tail like a rat. It would hang by its tail from a tree, 
until knocked off with a stick, and then curl up with 
shut eyes and pretend to be dead. It was excellent 
eating when roasted with wild yams, — rather like a 
very small suckling pig, the colonists later discovered. 
For the most part, however. Smith was inclined to think 



294 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

they would have to depend upon their provisions and 
the corn they could buy from the Indians. 

On returning to Jamestown they found that the In- 
dians had been raiding the settlement, the colonists at 
the time being all at work and taken completely by sur- 
prise. Seventeen men had been wounded, and a boy 
killed. After this, the men were drilled each day, the 
guns were unpacked and a palisade was begun. 

Newport was in a hurry to return to England, and 
Wingfield now suggested that Smith, who was still 
supposed to be under arrest, should go with him and 
save any further trouble. This did not suit Smith at 
all. He demanded an open trial, got it, and was tri- 
umphantly cleared of all charges. 

Of the privation, dissensions and sickness which fol- 
lowed Newport's departure, the bad water, rotten food, 
constant trouble with savages, and the unreasonable 
demands of the directors of the London Company, all 
historians have told. One story, which Smith was 
wont to tell with keen relish, deals with the instruc- 
tions of the Company that the Indian chief, *' King 
Powhatan," should be crowned with all due ceremony, 
just at a time of year when every hand in the colony 
was needed for attending to the crops. Smith and 
Newport had just come to a reasonable understanding 
with that astute savage, by which he treated them with 
real respect; and the attention paid him by his " bro- 
ther James," as he proceeded to call the King of Eng- 
land, rather turned his head. He liked the red cloak 
sent him, but had no idea what a crown meant. The 
raccoon skin mantle which he removed when robed in 
the royal crimson was sent to England and is now in a 
museum at Oxford. 

After some years of strenuous toil and adventure 



ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 295 

John Smith went back to London. An explosion of 
powder, whether accidental or intentional was never 
known, wounded him seriously just before he left 
Jamestown, and he did not recover from it for some 
time. 

" And what is in your mind to do next. Captain? " 
asked Master William Simons the geographer when 
they had finished, between them, the new map of Vir- 
ginia. Smith's eyes twinkled as he snapped the cover 
on his inkhorn. 

" Why, 't is hard for an old rover like me to lie 
abed when there's man's work to be done. You know, 
the London Company holds only the southern division 
of the King's Patent for Virginia; the north's given to 
Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth. And that's never been 
settled yet." 

" There was a colony of Captain George Popham 
and Ralegh Gilbert went out, five year ago," said Sim- 
ons doubtfully. " They said they could not endure the 
bitter climate." 

" Sho," said Smith impatiently, one stubbed fore- 
finger on the map, " 't is in almost the same latitude as 
France. Maybe they chose the wrong place for their 
plantation. Why, the French trade furs with the sav- 
ages, all up and down the Saint Laurence, and mind the 
cold no more than nothing at all. The first thing we 
know, the Dutch will be out here finding a road to the 
Indies." 

Both men laughed. They had lost faith in that 
road to fortune. 

" Anyhow Hudson didn't find it when they sent him 
to look for it the year afore he died," said Simons, 
" or they'd be into it now. But what are you schem- 
ing?" 



296 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

*' First make a voyage of exploration," said Smith. 
" I ha' talked with one and another that told me they 
taken a draught of the coast, and I ha' six or seven of 
the plots they drew, so different from one another and 
out of proportion they do me as much good as so much 
waste paper — though they cost me more," added the 
veteran grimly. " With a true map o' the coast, we'd 
know whereabouts we were." 

" No gold nor silver, I hear." 

" Maybe not. But what commodity in England de- 
cays faster than wood? And where will you find bet- 
ter forest than along that shore? Build shipyards 
there, and our English folk would make a living off'n 
that and the fisheries. I know how 't was in Boston — 
the Flemings would salt their fish down right aboard 
the ships when the fleets came in. But men for work 
like this must be men — not tyrants, nor slaves." 

John Smith's eyes flashed, and his lips closed so 
tightly that his thick mustaches and beard stuck straight 
out like a lion's. He had seen a plenty of both slavery 
and tyranny in his life. 

In fact there was a neck-and-neck race between the 
Plymouth Company and the Dutch West India Com- 
pany, for the control of the northern province. Dutch 
fur traders were already on Manhattan Island hving 
in makeshift wooden huts, and Adrian Block was ex- 
ploring Long Island Sound, when John Smith went out 
to map the coast north of Cape Cod for Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges of the Plymouth Company in 1614. The two 
little English ships reached the part of the coast called 
by the Indians Monhegan in April of that year. They 
had general instructions to meet the cost of the expedi- 
tion, if possible, by whaling, fishing and fur-trading. 
No true whales were found, however, and bv the time 



ADMIRAL OF NEW ENGLAND 297 

the ships reached the fishing grounds the cod season 
was nearly past. Mullet and sturgeon were plentiful 
in summer, and while the sailors fished, Smith took a 
few men in a small boat and ranged the coast, trading 
for furs. Within a distance of fifty or sixty miles they 
got in exchange for such trifles as were prized by the 
Indians, more than a thousand beaver skins, a hundred 
or more martens and as many otter-pelts. On a rocky 
island four leagues from shore. In latitude 4-3%, he 
made a garden in May which gave them all salad veg- 
etables through June and July. Not a man of the 
twenty-five was 111 even for a day. Cod, they learned, 
were abundant from March to the middle of June, and 
again from September to November, for cor-fish — salt 
fish or Poor John. The Indians said that the herring 
were more than the hairs of the head. Sturgeon, mul- 
let, salmon, halibut and other fish were plentiful. 
Smith had a vision of comfortable independent mariners 
settled on farms all along the coast, sending their fish 
to market the year round, and sleeping every night at 
home. It seemed to him that here, In a hardy thrifty 
province which gold-seekers and gentlemen adventur- 
ers might scorn, he could contentedly end his days. 

There was a pleasant inlet on the coast of a bold 
headland, north of Cape Cod, which he thought would 
be his choice for his plantation. This headland he had 
named Cape Tragabigzanda. There were three small 
round islands to be seen far to seaward, which he called 
the Three Turks' Heads. One Sunday, " a faire sun- 
shining day," he climbed a green height above Anus- 
quam, and sitting on a huge boulder surveyed the bright 
and peaceful landscape and chose the site for his house. 
Good stone there would be In abundance, and mighty 
timbers that had been growing for him since the days 



298 DAYS OF THE DISCOVERERS 

of Noah. In this Province of New England a strong 
and fearless race would found new towns with the old 
names — Boston, Plymouth, Ipswich, Sandwich, Glou- 
cester. So he dreamed until the sun went down under 
a canopy of crimson and gold, while the boat rocked in 
the little bay where he would hav^e his wharf. 

In 1 6 19, when English Puritans began prepara- 
tions for the founding of a new colony, he offered his 
services, but the older men would have none of him. 
He was a " Church of England Protestant " and one of 
the unregenerate with whom they had no fellowship. 
They took his map as a guide, and settled, not on Cape 
Tragabigzanda, which Prince Charles had re-named 
Cape Anne, but in the bay which he had called Plym- 
outh. He spent some years in London writing an ac- 
count of his adventures, and died in 1631 at the age of 
fifty-two — Captain John Smith, Admiral of New 
England. 

NOTE 

The account of Captain John Smith's adventures among the Turks 
was at one time considered apocryphal, but good authorities now see no 
reason to regard his narrative of his own career as in any way 
inaccurate. The perils and strange chances which an adventurous 
man encountered in such times often seem almost incredible in a more 
peaceful age, but there is really no more reason to doubt them than 
to discredit authentic accounts of men like Daniel Boone, Francis 
Drake, or other men of similar disposition. 



THE DISCOVERERS 

Through tangled mysteries of old romance 
Knights, Latin, Celt or Saxon, pass a-dream, 

Seeking the minarets of magic towers 
Through the witched woods that gleam. 

Stately in trappings thick with gold and gems, 

Stern-browed and stubborn-eyed, they wandered forth. 

As children credulous, as strong men brave, 
To South, and West, and North. 

Our venturous pilots map the windy skies; 

To serve our pleasure, huger galleons wait. 
Aflame with more than magic lights, our walls 
Guard the Manhattan Gate! 



299 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Among the sources of information from which the historical 
material of this book are drawn are the following works: 

Voyages, Hakluyt 

The Discovery of America. John Fiske 

Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America. John Fiske 

The Conquest of Mexico. Prescott 

Two Voyages in New England. J. Josselyn 

Adventures and Conquests of Magellan. George Make- 
peace TOWLE 

Narrative and Critical History of America. Edited by Jus- 
tin Winsor) 

The People for Whom Shakespeare Wrote. Warner 

The Romance of Colonization. G. Barnett Smith 

Life of Columbus. Washington Irving 

The Voyage of the Vega. Nordenskiold 

The Land of the Midnight Sun. Du Chaillu 

The Court of France. Lady Jackson 

Sailors' Narratives of New England Voj^ages. (Edited by 
George Parker Winship) 

Indian Basketry. George Wharton James 

The Iroquois Book of Rites. Hale 

Drake. Alfred Noyes {poem) 

Crusaders of New France. William Bennett Munro 

Elizabethan Sea-dogs. William Wood 

Young Folks' Book of American Explorers. Higginson 

Paradise Found. William F. Warren 

Ferdinand and Isabella. Prescott 

Pioneers of France in the New World. Parkman 

Sir Francis Drake. Julian Corbett 

Henry the Navigator. Men of Action Series 

the end 
300 



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